Podcasts about sacred theology

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelor's of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Are we obliged to trust and obey all priests? Are priests required to give penance for every confession? What can I say to my niece who left the church for protestantism? Can the Holy Spirit work through A.I.? Do Eastern Rite masses fulfil Roman Catholic oblegations?  Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

DescriptionYou are in for a treat today…you are about to enter “evangelizing catechesis heaven”. If there is one thing that I believe about teaching and preaching it is that “when you teach, preach!” Catechists can no longer (and this has been true for a long time) assume that the people they are teaching have a real life relationship with Jesus. So…all of our teaching has to be imbued with the core Gospel message. But HOW?? How do you do this? Well this is exactly what we dig deeply into today! And I am pumped for you to check it out!BioDr. James Pauley is Professor of Theology and Catechetics and editor of The Catechetical Review at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is the author of two books focused on the renewal of catechesis: An Evangelizing Catechesis: Teaching from Your Encounter with Christ and Liturgical Catechesis in the 21st Century: A School of Discipleship . Dr. Pauley began working as a parish catechetical leader in 1989 and has served professionally in parish, diocesan, and university catechetical formation for more than thirty years. Having received his Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Liturgical Institute at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in 2014, he enjoys serving as a frequent speaker in dioceses and parishes nationwide on a variety of topics related to evangelization, catechesis, and the transformative sacramental encounter. Dr. Pauley is married to Katrina, and they are blessed with three daughters.Link to Evangelizing Catechesis book:https://www.amazon.com/dp/1681924323/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=DUOSP&content-id=amzn1.sym.27ff3460-3571-4b3a-9a28-9e9ebed7694a&pf_rd_p=27ff3460-3571-4b3a-9a28-9e9ebed7694a&pf_rd_r=Y2DHAC109F5MTTZJPC1R&pd_rd_wg=EQ0CO&pd_rd_r=329769cb-ccf0-4f36-8c68-ceab749dad70 Link to Liturgical Catechesis book:https://www.amazon.com/Liturgical-Catechesis-21st-Century-Revised/dp/1616716819/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1683257851&refinements=p_27%3AJames+C.+Pauley&s=books&sr=1-2&text=James+C.+PauleyLink to the Catechetical Review journal:https://franciscanathome.com/crLinksFor more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreachBetter Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here's a link to the channel.Check out Ryan's FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or FacebookJoin the Better Preach email list.

BIO:The Reverend Dr. Starlette Thomas is a poet, practical theologian, and itinerant prophet for a coming undivided “kin-dom.” She is the director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, named for her work and witness and an associate editor at Good Faith Media. Starlette regularly writes on the sociopolitical construct of race and its longstanding membership in the North American church. Her writings have been featured in Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, Free Black Thought, Word & Way, Plough, Baptist News Global and Nurturing Faith Journal among others. She is a frequent guest on podcasts and has her own. The Raceless Gospel podcast takes her listeners to a virtual church service where she and her guests tackle that taboo trinity— race, religion, and politics. Starlette is also an activist who bears witness against police brutality and most recently the cultural erasure of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. It was erected in memory of the 2020 protests that brought the world together through this shared declaration of somebodiness after the gruesome murder of George Perry Floyd, Jr. Her act of resistance caught the attention of the Associated Press. An image of her reclaiming the rubble went viral and in May, she was featured in a CNN article.Starlette has spoken before the World Council of Churches North America and the United Methodist Church's Council of Bishops on the color- coded caste system of race and its abolition. She has also authored and presented papers to the members of the Baptist World Alliance in Zurich, Switzerland and Nassau, Bahamas to this end. She has cast a vision for the future of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture's “Forward Conference: Religions Envisioning Change.” Her paper was titled “Press Forward: A Raceless Gospel for Ex- Colored People Who Have Lost Faith in White Supremacy.” She has lectured at The Queen's Foundation in Birmingham, U.K. on a baptismal pedagogy for antiracist theological education, leadership and ministries. Starlette's research interests have been supported by the Louisville Institute and the Lilly Foundation. Examining the work of the Reverend Dr. Clarence Jordan, whose farm turned “demonstration plot” in Americus, Georgia refused to agree to the social arrangements of segregation because of his Christian convictions, Starlette now takes this dirt to the church. Her thesis is titled, “Afraid of Koinonia: How life on this farm reveals the fear of Christian community.” A full circle moment, she was recently invited to write the introduction to Jordan's newest collection of writings, The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race and Religion.Starlette is a member of the Christian Community Development Association, the Peace & Justice Studies Association, and the Koinonia Advisory Council. A womanist in ministry, she has served as a pastor as well as a denominational leader. An unrepentant academician and bibliophile, Starlette holds degrees from Buffalo State College, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Wesley Theological Seminary. Last year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Sacred Theology for her work and witness as a public theologian from Wayland Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of "Take Me to the Water": The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church and a contributing author of the book Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity.  JennyI was just saying that I've been thinking a lot about the distinction between Christianity and Christian supremacy and Christian nationalism, and I have been researching Christian nationalism for probably about five or six years now. And one of my introductions to the concept of it was a book that's based on a documentary that's based on a book called Constantine Sword. And it talked about how prior to Constantine, Christians had the image of fish and life and fertility, and that is what they lived by. And then Constantine supposedly had this vision of a cross and it said, with this sign, you shall reign. And he married the church and the state. And ever since then, there's been this snowball effect of Christian empire through the Crusades, through manifest destiny, through all of these things that we're seeing play out in the United States now that aren't new. But I think there's something new about how it's playing out right now.Danielle (02:15):I was thinking about the doctrine of discovery and how that was the creation of that legal framework and ideology to justify the seizure of indigenous lands and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. And just how part of that doctrine you have to necessarily make the quote, humans that exist there, you have to make them vacant. Or even though they're a body, you have to see them as internally maybe empty or lacking or less. And that really becomes this frame. Well, a repeated frame.Jenny (03:08):Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And it feels like that's so much source to that when that dehumanization is ordained by God. If God is saying these people who we're not even going to look at as people, we're going to look at as objects, how do we get out of that?Danielle (03:39):I don't know. Well, definitely still in it. You can hear folks like Charlie Kirk talk about it and unabashedly, unashamedly turning point USA talk about doctrine of discovery brings me currently to these fishing boats that have been jetting around Venezuela. And regardless of what they're doing, the idea that you could just kill them regardless of international law, regardless of the United States law, which supposedly we have the right to a process, the right to due process, the right to show up in a court and we're presumed innocent. But this doctrine applies to people manifest destiny, this doctrine of discovery. It applies to others that we don't see as human and therefore can snuff out life. And I think now they're saying on that first boat, I think they've blown up four boats total. And on the first boat, one of the ladies is speaking out, saying they were out fishing and the size of the boat. I think that's where you get into reality. The size of the boat doesn't indicate a large drug seizure anyway. It's outside reality. And again, what do you do if they're smuggling humans? Did you just destroy all that human life? Or maybe they're just fishing. So I guess that doctrine and that destiny, it covers all of these immoral acts, it kind of washes them clean. And I guess that talking about Constantine, it feels like the empire needed a way to do that, to absolve themselves.Danielle (05:40):I know it gives me both comfort and makes me feel depressed when I think about people in 300 ad being, they're freaking throwing people into the lion's den again and people are cheering. And I have to believe that there were humans at that time that saw the barbarism for what it was. And that gives me hope that there have always been a few people in a system of tyranny and oppression that are like, what the heck is going on? And it makes me feel like, ugh. When does that get to be more than just the few people in a society kind of society? Or what does a society need to not need such violence? Because I think it's so baked in now to these white and Christian supremacy, and I don't know, in my mind, I don't think I can separate white supremacy from Christian supremacy because even before White was used as a legal term to own people and be able to vote, the legal term was Christian. And then when enslaved folks started converting to Christianity, they pivoted and said, well, no, not all Christians. It has to be white Christians. And so I think white supremacy was birthed out of a long history of Christian supremacy.Danielle (07:21):Yeah, it's weird. I remember growing up, and maybe you had this experience too, I remember when Schindler's List hit the theaters and you were probably too young, but Schindler's listed the theaters, and I remember sitting in a living room and having to convince my parents of why I wanted to see it. And I think I was 16, I don't remember. I was young and it was rated R and of course that was against our values to see rated R movies. But I really wanted to see this movie. And I talked and talked and talked and got to see this movie if anybody's watched Schindler's List, it's a story of a man who is out to make money, sees this opportunity to get free labor basically as part of the Nazi regime. And so he starts making trades to access free labor, meanwhile, still has women, enjoys a fine life, goes to church, has a pseudo faith, and as time goes along, I'm shortening the story, but he gets this accountant who he discovers he loves because his accountant makes him rich. He makes him rich off the labor. But the accountant is thinking, how do I save more lives and get them into this business with Schindler? Well, eventually they get captured, they get found out. All these things happen, right, that we know. And it becomes clear to Schindler that they're exterminating, they're wiping out an entire population.(09:01):I guess I come to that and just think about, as a young child, I remember watching that thinking, there's no way this would ever happen again because there's film, there's documentation. At the time, there were people alive from the Great war, the greatest generation like my grandfather who fought in World War ii. There were other people, we had the live stories. But now just a decade, 12, 13 years removed, it hasn't actually been that long. And the memory of watching a movie like Schindler's List, the impact of seeing what it costs a soul to take the life of other souls like that, that feels so far removed now. And that's what the malaise of the doctrine of Discovery and manifest destiny, I think have been doing since Constantine and Christianity. They've been able to wipe the memory, the historical memory of the evil done with their blessing.(10:06):And I feel like even this huge thing like the Holocaust, the memories being wiped, you can almost feel it. And in fact, people are saying, I don't know if they actually did that. I don't know if they killed all these Jewish peoples. Now you hear more denial even of the Holocaust now that those storytellers aren't passed on to the next life. So I think we are watching in real time how Christianity and Constantine were able to just wipe use empire to wipe the memory of the people so they can continue to gain riches or continue to commit atrocities without impunity just at any level. I guess that's what comes to mind.Jenny (10:55):Yeah, it makes me think of, I saw this video yesterday and I can't remember what representative it was in a hearing and she had written down a long speech or something that she was going to give, and then she heard during the trial the case what was happening was someone shared that there have been children whose parents have been abducted and disappeared because the children were asked at school, are your parents undocumented? And she said, I can't share what I had prepared because I'm caught with that because my grandfather was killed in the Holocaust because his children were asked at school, are your parents Jewish?(11:53):And my aunt took that guilt with her to her grave. And the amount of intergenerational transgenerational trauma that is happening right now, that never again is now what we are doing to families, what we are doing to people, what we are doing to children, the atrocities that are taking place in our country. Yeah, it's here. And I think it's that malaise has come over not only the past, but even current. I think people don't even know how to sit with the reality of the horror of what's happening. And so they just dissociate and they just check out and they don't engage the substance of what's happening.Danielle (13:08):Yeah. I tell a friend sometimes when I talk to her, I just say, I need you to tap in. Can you just tap in? Can you just carry the conversation or can you just understand? And I don't mean understand, believe a story. I mean feel the story. It's one thing to say the words, but it's another thing to feel them. And I think Constantine is a brilliant guy. He took a peaceful religion. He took a peaceful faith practice, people that literally the prior guy was throwing to the lions for sport. He took a people that had been mocked, a religious group that had been mocked, and he elevated them and then reunified them with that sword that you're talking about. And so what did those Christians have to give up then to marry themselves to empire? I don't know, but it seems like they kind of effed us over for eternity, right?Jenny (14:12):Yeah. Well, and I think that that's part of it. I think part of the malaise is the infatuation with eternity and with heaven. And I know for myself, when I was a missionary for many years, I didn't care about my body because this body, this light and momentary suffering paled in comparison to what was awaiting me. And so no matter what happened, it was a means to an end to spend eternity with Jesus. And so I think of empathy as us being able to feel something of ourselves in someone else. If I don't have grief and joy and sorrow and value for this body, I'm certainly not going to have it for other bodies. And I think the disembodiment of white Christian supremacy is what enables bodies to just tolerate and not consider the brutality of what we're seeing in the United States. What we're seeing in Congo, what we're seeing in Palestine, what we're seeing everywhere is still this sense of, oh, the ends are going to justify the means we're all going to, at least I'll be in heaven and everyone else can kind of figure out what they're going to do.I don't know, man. Yeah, maybe. I guess when you think about Christian nationalism versus maybe a more authentic faith, what separates them for youAbiding by the example that Jesus gave or not. I mean, Jesus was killed by the state because he had some very unpopular things to say about the state and the way in which he lived was very much like, how do I see those who are most oppressed and align myself with them? Whereas Christian nationalism is how do I see those who have the most power and align myselves with them?(16:48):And I think it is a question of alignment and orientation. And at the end of the day, who am I going to stand with even knowing and probably knowing that that may be to the detriment of my own body, but I do that not out of a sense of martyrdom, but out of a sense of integrity. I refuse. I think I really believe Jesus' words when he said, what good is it for a man to gain the world and lose his soul? And at the end of the day, what I'm fighting for is my own soul, and I don't want to give that up.Danielle (17:31):Hey, starlet, we're on to not giving up our souls to power.The Reverend Dr.Rev. Dr. Starlette (17:47):I'm sorry I'm jumping from one call to the next. I do apologize for my tardiness now, where were we?Danielle (17:53):We got on the subject of Constantine and how he married the sword with Christianity when it had been fish and fertile ground and et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that's where we started. Yeah, that's where we started.Starlette (18:12):I'm going to get in where I fit in. Y'all keep going.Danielle (18:14):You get in. Yeah, you get in. I guess Jenny, for me and for you, starlet, the deep erasure of any sort of resemblance of I have to look back and I have to be willing to interrogate, I think, which is what a lot of people don't want to do. I grew up in a really conservative evangelical family and a household, and I have to interrogate, well, one, why did my mom get into that? Because Mexican, and number two, I watched so slowly as there was a celebration. I think it was after Bill Clinton had this Monica Lewinsky thing and all of this stuff happened. My Latino relatives were like, wait a minute, we don't like that. We don't like that. That doesn't match our values. And I remember this celebration of maybe now they're going to become Christians. I remember thinking that as a child, because for them to be a Democrat in my household and for them to hold different values around social issues meant that they weren't necessarily saved in my house and my way because they hadn't fully bought into empire in the way I know Jenny muted herself.(19:31):They hadn't fully bought into empire. And I slowly watched those family members in California kind of give way to conservatism the things that beckoned it. And honestly, a lot of it was married to religion and to what is going on today and not standing up for justice, not standing up for civil rights. I watched the movement go over, and it feels like at the expense of the memory of my grandfather and my great-grandfather who despised religion in some ways, my grandfather did not like going to church because he thought people were fake. He didn't believe them, and he didn't see what church had to do with being saved anyway. And so I think about him a lot and I think, oh, I got to hold onto that a little bit in the face of empire. But yeah, my mind just went off on that rabbit trail.Starlette (20:38):Oh, it's quite all right. My grandfather had similar convictions. My grandmother took the children to church with her and he stayed back. And after a while, the children were to decide that they didn't want to go anymore. And I remember him saying, that's enough. That's enough. You've done enough. They've heard enough. Don't make them go. But I think he drew some of the same conclusions, and I hold those as well, but I didn't grow up in a household where politics was even discussed. Folks were rapture ready, as they say, because they were kingdom minded is what they say now. And so there was no discussion of what was going on on the ground. They were really out of touch with, I'm sending right now. They were out of touch with reality. I have on pants, I have on full makeup, I have on earrings. I'm not dressed modestly in any way, shape, fashion or form.(21:23):It was a very externalized, visible, able to be observed kind of spirituality. And so I enter the spaces back at home and it's like going into a different world. I had to step back a bit and oftentimes I just don't say anything. I just let the room have it because you can't, in my experience, you can't talk 'em out of it. They have this future orientation where they live with their feet off the ground because Jesus is just around the corner. He's right in that next cloud. He's coming, and so none of this matters. And so that affected their political participation and discussion. There was certainly very minor activism, so I wasn't prepared by family members to show up in the streets like I do now. I feel sincerely called. I feel like it's a work of the spirit that I know where to put my feet at all, but I certainly resonate with what you would call a rant that led you down to a rabbit hole because it led me to a story about my grandfather, so I thank you for that. They were both right by the way,Danielle (22:23):I think so he had it right. He would sit in the very back of church sometimes to please my grandmother and to please my family, and he didn't have a cell phone, but he would sit there and go to sleep. He would take a nap. And I have to think of that now as resistance. And as a kid I was like, why does he do that? But his body didn't want to take it in.Starlette (22:47):That's rest as resistance from the Nat Bishop, Trisha Hersey, rest as act of defiance, rest as reparations and taking back my time that you're stealing from me by having me sit in the service. I see that.Danielle (23:02):I mean, Jenny, it seems like Constantine, he knew what to do. He gets Christians on his side, they knew how to gather organically. He then gets this mass megaphone for whatever he wants, right?Jenny (23:21):Yeah. I think about Adrian Marie Brown talks a lot about fractals and how what happens on a smaller scale is going to be replicated on larger scales. And so even though there's some sense of disjoint with denominations, I think generally in the United States, there is some common threads of that manifest destiny that have still found its way into these places of congregating. And so you're having these training wheels really even within to break it down into the nuclear family that James Dobson wanted everyone to focus on was a very, very narrow white, patriarchal Christian family. And so if you rehearse this on these smaller scales, then you can rehearse it in your community, then you can rehearse it, and it just bubbles and bubbles and balloons out into what we're seeing happen, I think.Yeah, the nuclear family and then the youth movements, let us, give us your youth, give us your kids. Send us your kids and your youth to our camps.Jenny (24:46):Great. I grew up in Colorado and I was probably 10 or 11 when the Columbine shooting happened, and I remember that very viscerally. And the immediate conversation was not how do we protect kids in school? It was glorifying this one girl that maybe or maybe did not say yes when the shooters asked, do you still believe in God? And within a year her mom published a book about it. And that was the thing was let's use this to glorify martyrdom. And I think it is different. These were victims in school and I think any victim of the shooting is horrifying. And I think we're seeing a similar level of that martyrdom frenzy with Charlie Kirk right now. And what we're not talking about is how do we create a safer society? What we're talking about, I'm saying, but I dunno. What I'm hearing of the white Christian communities is how are we glorifying Charlie Kirk as a martyr and what power that wields when we have someone that we can call a martyr?Starlette (26:27):No, I just got triggered as soon as you said his name.(26:31):Just now. I think grieving a white supremacist is terrifying. Normalizing racist rhetoric is horrifying. And so I look online in disbelief. I unfollowed and blocked hundreds of people on social media based on their comments about what I didn't agree with. Everything he said, got a lot of that. I'm just not interested. I think they needed a martyr for the race war that they're amping for, and I would like to be delivered from the delusion that is white body supremacy. It is all exhausting. I don't want to be a part of the racial imagination that he represents. It is not a new narrative. We are not better for it. And he's not a better person because he's died. The great Biggie Smalls has a song that says you're nobody until somebody kills you. And I think it's appropriate. Most people did not know who he was. He was a podcaster. I'm also looking kind of cross-eyed at his wife because that's not, I served as a pastor for more than a decade. This is not an expression of grief. There's nothing like anything I've seen for someone who was assassinated, which I disagree with.(28:00):I've just not seen widows take the helm of organizations and given passion speeches and make veil threats to audiences days before the, as we would say in my community, before the body has cooled before there is a funeral that you'll go down and take pictures. That could be arguably photo ops. It's all very disturbing to me. This is a different measure of grief. I wrote about it. I don't know what, I've never heard of a sixth stage of grief that includes fighting. We're not fighting over anybody's dead body. We're not even supposed to do it with Jesus. And so I just find it all strange that before the man is buried, you've already concocted a story wherein opposing forces are at each other's throats. And it's all this intergalactic battle between good and bad and wrong, up and down, white and black. It's too much.(28:51):I think white body supremacy has gotten out of hand and it's incredibly theatrical. And for persons who have pulled back from who've decent whiteness, who've de racialize themselves, it's foolishness. Just nobody wants to be involved in this. It's a waste of time. White body supremacy and racism are wastes of time. Trying to prove that I'm a human being or you're looking right at is a waste of time. And people just want to do other things, which is why African-Americans have decided to go to sleep, to take a break. We're not getting ready to spin our wheels again, to defend our humanity, to march for rights that are innate, to demand a dignity that comes with being human. It's just asinine.(29:40):I think you would be giving more credence to the statements themselves by responding. And so I'd rather save my breath and do my makeup instead because trying to defend the fact that I'm a glorious human being made in the image of God is a waste of time. Look at me. My face is beat. It testifies for me. Who are you? Just tell me that I don't look good and that God didn't touch me. I'm with the finger of love as the people say, do you see this beat? Let me fall back. So you done got me started and I blame you. It's your fault for the question. So no, that's my response to things like that. African-American people have to insulate themselves with their senses of ness because he didn't have a kind word to say about African-American people, whether a African-American pilot who is racialized as black or an African-American woman calling us ignorance saying, we're incompetence. If there's no way we could have had these positions, when African-American women are the most agreed, we're the most educated, how dare you? And you think, I'm going to prove that I'm going to point to degrees. No, I'll just keep talking. It will make itself obvious and evident.(30:45):Is there a question in that? Just let's get out of that. It triggers me so bad. Like, oh, that he gets a holiday and it took, how many years did it take for Martin Luther King Junior to get a holiday? Oh, okay. So that's what I mean. The absurdity of it all. You're naming streets after him hasn't been dead a year. You have children coloring in sheets, doing reports on him. Hasn't been a few months yet. We couldn't do that for Martin Luther King. We couldn't do that for Rosa Parks. We couldn't do that for any other leader, this one in particular, and right now, find that to beI just think it just takes a whole lot of delusion and pride to keep puffing yourself up and saying, you're better than other people. Shut up, pipe down. Or to assume that everybody wants to look like you or wants to be racialized as white. No, I'm very cool in who I'm, I don't want to change as the people say in every lifetime, and they use these racialized terms, and so I'll use them and every lifetime I want to come back as black. I don't apologize for my existence. I love it here. I don't want to be racialized as white. I'm cool. That's the delusion for me that you think everyone wants to look like. You think I would trade.(32:13):You think I would trade for that, and it looks great on you. I love what it's doing for you. But as for me in my house, we believe in melanin and we keep it real cute over here. I just don't have time. I think African-Americans minoritized and otherwise, communities should invest their time in each other and in ourselves as opposed to wasting our breath, debating people. We can't debate white supremacists. Anyway, I think I've talked about that the arguments are not rooted in reason. It's rooted in your dehumanization and equating you with three fifths of a human being who's in charge of measurements, the demonizing of whiteness. It's deeply problematic for me because it puts them in a space of creator. How can you say how much of a human being that's someone? This stuff is absurd. And so I've refuse to waste my breath, waste my life arguing with somebody who doesn't have the power, the authority.(33:05):You don't have the eyesight to tell me if I'm human or not. This is stupid. We're going to do our work and part of our work is going to sleep. We're taking naps, we're taking breaks, we're putting our feet up. I'm going to take a nap after this conversation. We're giving ourselves a break. We're hitting the snooze button while staying woke. There's a play there. But I think it's important that people who are attacked by white body supremacy, not give it their energy. Don't feed into the madness. Don't feed into the machine because it'll eat you alive. And I didn't get dressed for that. I didn't get on this call. Look at how I look for that. So that's what that brings up. Okay. It brings up the violence of white body supremacy, the absurdity of supremacy at all. The delusion of the racial imagination, reading a 17th century creation onto a 21st century. It's just all absurd to me that anyone would continue to walk around and say, I'm better than you. I'm better than you. And I'll prove it by killing you, lynching you, raping your people, stealing your people, enslaving your people. Oh, aren't you great? That's pretty great,Jenny (34:30):I think. Yeah, I think it is. I had a therapist once tell me, it's like you've had the opposite of a psychotic break because when that is your world and that's all, it's so easy to justify and it makes sense. And then as soon as you step out of it, you're like, what the what? And then it makes it that much harder to understand. And this is my own, we talked about this last week, but processing what is my own path in this of liberation and how do I engage people who are still in that world, who are still related to me, who are, and in a way that isn't exhausting for I'm okay being exhausted if it's going to actually bear something, if it's just me spinning my wheels, I don't actually see value in that. And for me, what began to put cracks in that was people challenging my sense of superiority and my sense of knowing what they should do with their bodies. Because essentially, I think a lot of how I grew up was similar maybe and different from how you were sharing Danielle, where it was like always vote Republican because they're going to be against abortion and they're going to be against gay marriage. And those were the two in my world that were the things that I was supposed to vote for no matter what. And now just seeing how far that no matter what is willing to go is really terrifying.Danielle (36:25):Yeah, I agree. Jenny. I mean, again, I keep talking about him, but he's so important to me. The idea that my great grandfather to escape religious oppression would literally walk 1,950 miles and would leave an oppressive system just in an attempt to get away. That walk has to mean something to me today. You can't forget. All of my family has to remember that he did a walk like that. How many of us have walked that far? I mean, I haven't ever walked that far in just one instance to escape something. And he was poor because he couldn't even pay for his mom's burial at the Catholic church. So he said, let me get out of this. And then of course he landed with the Methodist and he was back in the fire again. But I come back to him, and that's what people will do to get out of religious oppression. They will give it an effort and when they can. And so I think it's important to remember those stories. I'm off on my tangent again now because it feels so important. It's a good one.Starlette (37:42):I think it's important to highlight the walking away from, to putting one foot in front of the other, praying with your feet(37:51):That it's its own. You answer your own prayer by getting away from it. It is to say that he was done with it, and if no one else was going to move, he was going to move himself that he didn't wait for the change in the institution. Let's just change directions and get away from it. And I hate to even imagine what he was faced with and that he had to make that decision. And what propelled him to walk that long with that kind of energy to keep momentum and to create that amount of distance. So for me, it's very telling. I ran away at 12. I had had it, so I get it. This is the last time you're going to hit me.Not going to beat me out of my sleep. I knew that at 12. This is no place for me. So I admire people who get up in the dead of night, get up without a warning, make it up in their mind and said, that's the last time, or This is not what I'm going to do. This is not the way that I want to be, and I'm leaving. I admire him. Sounds like a hero. I think we should have a holiday.Danielle (38:44):And then imagine telling that. Then you're going to tell me that people like my grandfather are just in it. This is where it leaves reality for me and leaves Christianity that he's just in it to steal someone's job. This man worked the lemon fields and then as a side job in his retired years, moved up to Sacramento, took in people off death row at Folsom Prison, took 'em to his home and nursed them until they passed. So this is the kind a person that will walk 1,950 miles. They'll do a lot of good in the world, and we're telling people that they can't come here. That's the kind of people that are walking here. That's the kind of people that are coming here. They're coming here to do whatever they can. And then they're nurturing families. They're actually living out in their families what supposed Christians are saying they want to be. Because people in these two parent households and these white families, they're actually raising the kind of people that will shoot Charlie Kirk. It's not people like my grandfather that walked almost 2000 miles to form a better life and take care of people out of prisons. Those aren't the people forming children that are, you'reStarlette (40:02):Going to email for that. The deacons will you in the parking lot for that one. You you're going to get a nasty tweet for that one. Somebody's going to jump off in the comments and straighten you out at,Danielle (40:17):I can't help it. It's true. That's the reality. Someone that will put their feet and their faith to that kind of practice is not traveling just so they can assault someone or rob someone. I mean, yes, there are people that have done that, but there's so much intentionality about moving so far. It does not carry the weight of, can you imagine? Let me walk 2000 miles to Rob my neighbor. That doesn't make any sense.Starlette (40:46):Sounds like it's own kind of pilgrimage.Jenny (40:59):I have so many thoughts, but I think whiteness has just done such a number on people. And I'm hearing each of you and I'm thinking, I don't know that I could tell one story from any of my grandparents. I think that that is part of whiteness. And it's not that I didn't know them, but it's that the ways in which Transgenerational family lines are passed down are executed for people in considered white bodies where it's like my grandmother, I guess I can't tell some stories, but she went to Polish school and in the States and was part of a Polish community. And then very quickly on polls were grafted into whiteness so that they could partake in the GI Bill. And so that Polish heritage was then lost. And that was not that long ago, but it was a severing that happened. And some of my ancestors from England, that severing happened a long time ago where it's like, we are not going to tell the stories of our ancestors because that would actually reveal that this whole white thing is made up. And we actually have so much more to us than that. And so I feel like the social privilege that has come from that, but also the visceral grief of how I would want to know those stories of my ancestors that aren't there. Because in part of the way that whiteness operates,Starlette (42:59):I'm glad you told that story. Diane de Prima, she tells about that, about her parents giving up their Italian ness, giving up their heritage and being Italian at home and being white in public. So not changing their name, shortening their name, losing their accent, or dropping the accent. I'm glad that you said that. I think that's important. But like you said though, if you tell those stories and it shakes up the power dynamic for whiteness, it's like, oh, but there are books how the Irish became White, the Making of Whiteness working for Whiteness, read all the books by David Broer on Whiteness Studies. But I'm glad that you told us. I think it's important, and I love that you named it as a severing. Why did you choose that word in particular?Jenny (43:55):I had the privilege a few years ago of going to Poland and doing an ancestry trip. And weeks before I went, an extended cousin in the States had gotten connected with our fifth cousin in Poland. We share the fifth grandparents. And this cousin of mine took us around to the church where my fifth great grandparents got married and these just very visceral places. And I had never felt the land that my ancestors know in my body. And there was something really, really powerful of that. And so I think of severing as I have been cut off from that lineage and that heritage because of whiteness. And I feel very, very grateful for the ways in which that is beginning to heal and beginning to mend. And we can tell truer stories of our ancestry and where we come from and the practices of our people. And I think it is important to acknowledge the cost and the privilege that has come from that severing in order to get a job that was not reserved for people that weren't white. My family decided, okay, well we'll just play the part. We will take on that role of whiteness because that will then give us that class privilege and that socioeconomic privilege that reveals how much of a construct whitenessStarlette (45:50):A racial contract is what Charles W. Mills calls it, that there's a deal made in a back room somewhere that you'll trade your sense of self for another. And so that it doesn't, it just unravels all the ways in which white supremacy, white body supremacy, pos itself, oh, that we're better. I think people don't say anything because it unravels those lies, those tongue twisters that persons have spun over the centuries, that it's really just an agreement that we've decided that we'll make ourselves the majority so that we can bully everybody else. And nobody wants to be called that. Nobody wants to be labeled greedy. I'm just trying to provide for my family, but at what expense? At who else's expense. But I like to live in this neighborhood and I don't want to be stopped by police. But you're willing to sacrifice other people. And I think that's why it becomes problematic and troublesome because persons have to look at themselves.(46:41):White body supremacy doesn't offer that reflection. If it did, persons would see how monstrous it is that under the belly of the beast, seeing the underside of that would be my community. We know what it costs for other people to feel really, really important because that's what whiteness demands. In order to look down your nose on somebody, you got to stand on somebody's back. Meanwhile, our communities are teaching each other to stand. We stand on the shoulders of giants. It's very communal. It's a shared identity and way of being. Whereas whiteness demands allegiance by way of violence, violent taking and grabbing it is quite the undoing. We have a lot of work to do. But I am proud of you for telling that story.Danielle (47:30):I wanted to read this quote by Gloria, I don't know if you know her. Do you know her? She writes, the struggle is inner Chicano, Indio, American Indian, Molo, Mexicano, immigrant, Latino, Anglo and power working class Anglo black, Asian. Our psyches resemble the border towns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner and has played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before interchanges and which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the real world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.(48:16):So Jenny, when you're talking, you had some image in your head before you went to Poland, before it became reality. You had some, it didn't start with just knowing your cousin or whatever it happened before that. Or for me being confronted and having to confront things with my husband about ways we've been complicit or engaged in almost like the word comes gerrymandering our own future. That's kind of how it felt sometimes Luis and I and how to become aware of that and take away those scales off our own eyes and then just sit in the reality, oh no, we're really here and this is where we're really at. And so where are we going to go from here? And starlet, you've talked from your own position. That's just what comes to mind. It's something that happens inside. I mean, she talks about head, I think more in feelings in my chest. That's where it happens for me. But yeah, that's what comes to mind.Starlette (49:48):With. I feel like crying because of what we've done to our bodies and the bodies of other people. And we still can't see ourselves not as fully belonging to each other, not as beloved, not as holy.It's deeply saddening that for all the time that we have here together for all the time that we'll share with each other, we'll spend much of it not seeing each other at all.Danielle (50:57):My mind's going back to, I think I might've shared this right before you joined Starla, where it was like, I really believe the words of Jesus that says, what good is it for someone to gain the world and lose their soul? And that's what I hear. And what I feel is this soul loss. And I don't know how to convince other people. And I don't know if that's the point that their soul is worth it, but I think I've, not that I do it perfectly, but I think I've gotten to the place where I'm like, I believe my interiority is worth more than what it would be traded in for.(51:45):And I think that will be a lifelong journey of trying to figure out how to wrestle with a system. I will always be implicated in because I am talking to you on a device that was made from cobalt, from Congo and wearing clothes that were made in other countries. And there's no way I can make any decision other than to just off myself immediately. And I'm not saying I'm doing that, but I'm saying the part of the wrestle is that this is, everything is unresolved. And how do I, like what you said, Danielle, what did you say? Can you tune into this conversation?Jenny (52:45):Yeah. And how do I keep tapping in even when it means engaging my own implication in this violence? It's easier to be like, oh, those people over there that are doing those things. And it's like, wait, now how do I stay situated and how I'm continually perpetuating it as well, and how do I try to figure out how to untangle myself in that? And I think that will be always I,Danielle (53:29):He says, the US Mexican border as like an open wound where the third world grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds. Two worlds merging to form a third country, a border culture. Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary is it is in a constant state of transition. They're prohibited and forbidden arts inhabitants. And I think that as a Latina that really describes and mixed with who my father is and that side that I feel like I live like the border in me, it feels like it grates against me. So I hear you, Jenny, and I feel very like all the resonance, and I hear you star led, and I feel a lot of resonance there too. But to deny either thing would make me less human because I am human with both of those parts of me.(54:45):But also to engage them brings a lot of grief for both parts of me. And how does that mix together? It does feel like it's in a constant state of transition. And that's partly why Latinos, I think particularly Latino men bought into this lie of power and played along. And now they're getting shown that no, that part of you that's European, that part never counted at all. And so there is no way to buy into that racialized system. There's no way to put a down payment in and come out on the other side as human. As soon as we buy into it, we're less human. Yeah. Oh, Jenny has to go in a minute. Me too. But starlet, you're welcome to join us any Thursday. Okay.Speaker 1 (55:51):Afternoon. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health ResourcesIf you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.Kitsap County / Local ResourcesResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.Statewide & National Crisis ResourcesResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.Additional Helpful Tools & Tips• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately.Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that. Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelor's of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Should children confront their parents if they are sinning? What to do if you receive a non-Catholic religious favor How do I know if my son is meant to become a priest? Did Jesus have siblings? Why is the Eastern Orthodox not in communion with the West? Can a Catholic be a justice of the peace? Are horror movies and ghost-hunting portals to the demonic? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Reality and Faith Prompts1. What are the formations or structures for how you know you are in reality in regards to your faith? Do you have indicators? Internal senses? External resources? 2. Who are you in active dialogue with in regards to your faith? Who that is living and who that is passed on? 3. When you encounter dissonance with your reality of faith, how do you stay grounded in your experience?TranscriptsDanielle (00:00):To my computer. So thank you Starlet. Thank you Tamis for being with me. I've given already full introductions. I've recorded those separately. So the theme of the conversation and kind of what we're getting into on this podcast this season is I had this vision for talking about the themes have been race, faith, culture, church in the past on my podcast. But what I really think the question is, where is our reality and where are our touchpoints in those different realms? And so today there's going to be more info on this in the future, but where do we find reality and how do we form our reality when we integrate faith? So one of the questions I was asking Tamis and Starlet was what are the formations or structures for how you know are in reality in regards to your faith? Do you have indicators? Do you have internal senses? Do you have external resources? And so that's where I want to jump off from and it's free flow. I don't do a whole lot of editing, but yeah, just curious where your mind goes when you hear that, what comes to mind and we'll jump from there.Starlette (01:12):I immediately thought of baptism, baptismal waters. My baptismal identity forms and shapes me. It keeps me in touch with my body. It keeps me from being disembodied. Also, it keeps me from being swindled out of authority over my body due to the dangerous irrationalism of white body supremacy. So that's one thing. Protest also keeps me grounded. I have found that acts of defiance, minor personal rebellions, they do well for me. They keep me spiritually that I feel like it keeps me in step with Jesus. And I always feel like I'm catching up that I'm almost stepping on his feet. So for me, baptismal identity and protesting, those are the two things come to me immediately.Tamice (02:04):Whoa, that's so deep. Wow, I never thought about that. But I never thought about protests being a thing that groundsBecause I mean I've just been, for me I would say I've been working on the right so, and y'all know me, so I got acronyms for days. But I mean I think that the radical ethical spirituality that's tethered to my tradition, that's a rule of life, but it's also a litmus test. So for me, if you can't tell the truth, we don't have conversations about non-violence and loving enemies. I don't get to ethical spirituality unless you come through the front door of truth telling and truth telling in that sense of the r. And the rest arrest mix tape is radical. Angela Davis says radical and that's grasping stuff at the root. So before we have conversations about forgiveness for instance, or Jesus or scripture or what is right and what is moral, it's very important that we first tell the truth about the foundations of those realities and what we even mean by those terms and whose those terms serve and where they come from. I talk about it asking to see the manager. We need see the manager(03:24):Me that grounds me is now if something comes in and it calls me to move in a different way or corrects me or checks me in a certain way, I say yes to it if it comes through the door of truth telling because it means I also got to be true and tell the truth to myself. So that keeps me grounded. That kind of acronym is kind of how I move, but it's also how I keep toxic ways of doing religion out. And I also have come back into relationship with trees and grass and the waters and that's been really powerful for moving down into different types of intelligence. For me, the earth has been pulling me into a different way of knowing and being in that part brings me to ancestors. Just like you starlet my ancestors, I keep finding them in the trees and in the water and in the wind. So it's like, well I need them real bad right now. So that's where I'm kind of grounding myself these days.But to your point about grounding and protest, I feel most compelled to show up in spaces where the ground is crying out screaming. I feel like it beckons me there. And we talked about the most recent news of Trey being found and you talked about truth telling and what resonated immediately. And it didn't sit right with me that African-American people, people of African descent know not to take their lives in that way because of the traumatic history that when you say things like you don't suspect any foul play, it sounds like what has historically been named as at the hands of persons unknown where that no one is held responsible for the death of African-American people. That's what ties it in for me. And I feel like it's an ancestral pool that they didn't leave this way, they didn't leave in the way that they were supposed to, that something stinks and that they're crying out to say, can you hear me? Come over here Terry a while here. Don't leave him here. Don't let up on it because we didn't call him here somebody. So I love that you said that you are, feel yourself being grounded in and call back to the earth because I do feel like it speaks to us,But there are telltale signs in it and that the trees will tell us too. And so I didn't have a hand in this. It was forced on me and I saw it all come and talk to me. Put your hand here, put your head here and you can hear me scream and then you can hear me scream, you can hear him scream. He was calling out the whole time. That's what I believe in. That's how I test reality. I tested against what the earth is saying like you said, but I think we have to walk the ground a bit. We have to pace the ground a bit. We can't just go off of what people are saying. Back to your point about truth telling, don't trust nobody I don't trust. I don't trust anybody that's going to stop because you can't fix a lie. So if you're going to come in with deception, there's not much else I can do with you. There's not much I can say to you. And I find that white body supremacy is a supreme deception. So if we can't start there in a conversation, there's nothing that I can say to youTamice (06:46):That's facts. It's interesting that you talked about baptism, you talked about grounding and I had this story pop up and while you were talking again it popped up again. So I'm going to tell it. So we are not going to talk about who and all the things that happened recently, but I had made some comments online around that and around just the choice to be blind. So I've been talking a lot about John nine and this passage where it is very clear to everyone else what's happening, but the people who refuse to see, refuse to see.So in that, I was kind of pulled into that. I was in Mississippi, I was doing some stuff for the book and this lady, a chaplain, her name is Sally Bevin, actually Sally Bevel, she walked up to me, she kept calling me, she was like, Tam me, she want to come. I have my whole family there. We were at the Mississippi Book Fair and she kept saying, Tam me, she want to come join, dah, dah, dah. Then my family walked off and they started to peruse and then she asked me again and I was like, no, I'm good. And I was screaming. I mean I'm looking in the screen and the third time she did it, it pulled me out and I was like, this woman is trying to pull me into being present. And she said to me, this is funny, starlet. I said, I feel like I need to be washed and I need a baptism because this phone feels like so on right now and the wickedness is pulling me. So she poured, she got some ice, cold water, it was 95 degrees, poured cold water on my hands, had me wash my hands and she took the cold water. She put a cross on my forehead. And you know what she said to me? She said, remember your baptism?She said, remember your baptism? And when I was baptized, even though it was by a man who will not also be named, when I was baptized the wind, there was a whirlwind at my baptism. It was in 2004, that same wind hit in Mississippi and then I felt like I was supposed to take my shoes off. So I walked around the Mississippi Festival with no shoes on, not knowing that the earth was about to receive two people who did not deserve to be hung from trees. And there's something very, I feel real talk, I feel afraid for white supremacy right now in the name of my ancestors and I feel like I'm calling on everything right now. And that's also grounding me.Starlette (09:36):I was with Mother Moses last week. I went to Dorchester County just to be with her because the people were here. Take me. I said, I'll leave them all here. I know you said there are a few here, but give me the names, give me the last names of the people because I don't have time for this. I see why she left people. I see why she was packing. So to your point, I think it's important that we talk to the ancestors faithfully, religiously. We sit down at their feet and listen for a bit about how they got over and how they got through it and let them bear witness to us. And she does it for me every time, every single time she grounds, she grounds meDanielle (10:23):Listening to you all. I was like, oh wait. It is like Luke 19 where Jesus is coming in on the show and he didn't ride in on the fanciest plane on a donkey. And if you're familiar with that culture that is not the most elevated animal, not the elevated animal to ride, it's not the elevated animal. You don't eat it. Not saying that it isn't eaten at times, but it's not right. So he rides in on that and then people are saying glory to God in the highest and they're praising him and the Pharisees are like, don't do that because it's shameful and I don't remember the exact words, but he's basically be quiet. The rocks are going to tell the story of what happened here. He's walking his way. It kind of reminds me to me. So what you're saying, he's walking away, he's going to walk and he's going to walk that way and he's going to walk to his death. He's walking it in two scenarios that Jesus goes in to talk about. Your eyes are going to be blind to peace, to the real way to peace. It's going to be a wall put around you and you're going to miss out. People are going to destroy you because you missed your chance.Starlette (11:50):Point again creation. And if you're going to be a rock headed people, then I'll recruit this rock choir. They get ready to rock out on you. If there's nothing you're going to say. So even then he says that creation will bear witness against you. You ain't got to do it. You ain't got to do it. I can call these rock. You can be rock headed if you want to. You can be stony hearted if you want to. I can recruit choir members from the ground,Tamice (12:16):But not even that because y'all know I'm into the quantum and metaphysics. Not even that they actually do speak of course, like words are frequencies. So when you hold a certain type of element in your hand, that thing has a frequency to it. That's alright that they said whatever, I don't need it from you. Everything else is tapped into this.Starlette (12:39):Right. In fact, it's the rocks are tapped into a reality. The same reality that me and this donkey and these people throwing stuff at my feet are tapped into.You are not tapped into reality. And so that's why he makes the left and not the right because typically when a person is coming to Saka city, they head towards the temple. He went the other direction because he is like it was a big fuck. I don't use power like this. And actually what I'm about to do is raise you on power. This is a whole different type of power. And that's what I feel like our ancestors, the realities that the alternative intelligence in the world you're talking about ai, the alternative intelligence in the world is what gives me every bit of confidence to look this beast in the face and call it what it is. This isTamice (13:52):And not going to bow to it. And I will go down proclaiming it what it is. I will not call wickedness good.And Jesus said, Jesus was so when he talks about the kingdom of heaven suffering violence and the violence taken it by force, it's that it's like there's something so much more violent about being right and righteous. Y'all have to use violence because you can't tell the truth.Danielle (14:29):Do you see the split two? There's two entirely different realities happening. Two different kingdoms, two entirely different ways of living in this era and they're using quote J, but it's not the same person. It can't be, you cannot mix white Jesus and brown Jesus. They don't go together. TheyStarlette (15:00):Don't, what is it? Michael O. Emerson and Glenn e Bracy. The second they have this new book called The Religion of Whiteness, and they talk about the fact that European Americans who are racialized as white Tahi says those who believe they are white. He says that there's a group of people, the European Americans who are racialized as white, who turn to scripture to enforce their supremacy. And then there's another group of people who turn to scripture to support and affirm our sibling.It is two different kingdoms. It's funny, it came to me the other day because we talk about, I've talked about how for whiteness, the perception of goodness is more important than the possession of it.You know what I mean? So mostly what they do is seek to be absolved. Right? So it's just, and usually with the being absolved means I'm less bad than that, so make that thing more bad than me and it's a really terrible way to live a life, but it is how whiteness functions, and I'm thinking about this in the context of all that is happening in the world because it's like you cannot be good and racist period. And that's as clear as you cannot love God and mammon you will end up hating one and loving the other. You cannot love God. You cannotStarlette (16:29):Love God and hate your next of kin your sibling. Dr. Angela Parker says something really important During the Wild Goose Festival, she asked the participants there predominantly European American people, those racialized as white. She said, do you all Terry, do you Terry, do you wait for the Holy Spirit? Do you sit with yourself and wait for God to move? And it talked, it spoke to me about power dynamic. Do you feel like God is doing the moving and you wait for the spirit to anoint you, to fill you, to inspire you, to baptize you with fire? You Terry, do you wait a while or do you just the other end of that that she doesn't say, do you just get up? I gave my life to Jesus and it's done right handed fellowship, give me my certificate and walk out the door. You have to sit with yourself and I don't know what your tradition is.I was raised Pentecostal holiness and I had to tear all night long. I was on my knees calling on the name of Jesus and I swear that Baba couldn't hear me. Which octave do you want me to go in? I lost my voice. You know them people, them mothers circled me with a sheet and told me I didn't get it that night that I had to come back the next day after I sweat out my down, I sweat out my press. Okay. I pressed my way trying to get to that man and they told me he didn't hear me. He not coming to get you today. I don't hear a change. They were looking for an evidence of tongues. They didn't hear an evidence, a change speech. You still sound the way that you did when you came in here. And I think that white body supremacy, that's where the problem lies with me. There's no difference. I don't hear a change in speech. You're still talking to people as if you can look down your nose with them. You have not been submerged in the water. You did not go down in the water. White supremacy, white body supremacy has not been drowned out.Terry, you need to Terry A. Little while longer. I'll let you know when you've gotten free. When you've been lifted, there's a cloud of witnesses. Those mothers rubbing your back, snapping your back and saying, call on him. Call him like you want him. Call him like you need him and they'll tell you when they see evidence, they'll let you, you know when you've been tied up, tangled up. That's what we would say. Wrapped up in Jesus and I had to come back a second night and call on the Lord and then they waited a while. They looked, they said, don't touch her, leave her alone. He got her now, leave her alone. But there was an affirmation, there was a process. You couldn't just get up there and confess these ABCs and salvation, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Why do you think they'll let you know when you got it?Danielle (18:56):Why do you think that happened? Why? I have a question for You'all. Why do you think that became the reality of the prayer in that moment? And we're talking about Africans that have been brought here and enslaved. Why do you think that happened on our soil that way? Why question?Tamice (19:12):I mean I'm wondering about it because when stylists talk and I keep thinking the Terry in and of itself is a refusal. It says what I see is not real. What's in front of me is not right. I'm going to wait for something else.I'm saying, the slave Bible, them taking stuff out of the Bible and it's like, but I feel like the ground, there was something about the ground that indigenous people, that indigenous people were able to help them tap into over here. It was waiting on that.Starlette (19:49):We didn't have punishment. We had a percussion session. So they ring shouted me. I didn't know what it was at the time. We didn't have all the fancy stuff. Everybody had put me in key. We didn't have, we had this and feet them people circled around me. We don't do that no more.Danielle (20:06):We don't do that no more. But don't you think if you're a person that is, and I believe Africans came here with faith already. Oh yes, there's evidence of that. So put that aside, but don't you think then even if you have that faith and it's not so different than our time and you're confronted with slave owners and plantation owners also preaching quote the same faith that you're going to have to test it out on your neighbor when they're getting saved. You're going to have to make sure they didn't catch that bug.Don't you think there's something in there? Block it. Don't you think if you know faith internally already like we do and run into someone that's white that's preaching the same thing, we have to wait it out with them. Don't you think our ancestors knew that when they were here they were waiting it out. I just noticed my spirit match that spirit. We have to wait it out. Yes, because and let's say they didn't know Jesus. Some people didn't know Jesus and they met Jesus here for whatever reason, and your example is still the white man. You have to wait it out to make sure you're not reflecting that evilness. I mean that's what I'm thinking. That's it's the absolutelyStarlette (21:20):Truth. There's a book titled Slave Testimony, and I know this because I just read about it. There's a testimony of an enslaved African-American, he's unnamed. It was written on June 26th, 1821. He's talking to Master John. He said, I want permission to speak to you if you please. He talked about, he said, where is it? Where is it? A few words. I hope that you will not think Me too bull. Sir, I make my wants known to you because you are, I believe the oldest and most experienced that I know of. He says in the first place, I want you to tell me the reason why you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us is because they sit up on the hill. We have no chance among them there. We must be forgotten because we are near enough. We are not near enough without getting in the edge of the swamp behind you. He was calling him to account. He said, when you sell me, do you make sure that I'm sold to a Christian or heathen?He said, we are charged with inattention because of where their position. He said it's impossible for us to pay good attention with this chance. In fact, some of us scarce think that we are preached to it all. He says, money appears to be the object. We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder. Never once inquired whether you sold to a heathen or a Christian. If the question was put, did you sell to a Christian, what would the answer be? I can tell you, I can tell what he was, gave me my price. That's all I was interested in. So I don't want people to believe that Africans who were enslaved did not talk back, did not speak back. They took him to task. He said, everybody's not literate. There's about one in 50 people who are, and I'm one of them and I may not be able to speak very well, but this is what I want to tell you. I can tell the difference. I know that you're not preaching to me the same. I know that when you talk about salvation, you're not extending it to me.Yikes. You need to know that our people, these ancestors, not only were they having come to Jesus meetings, but they were having come to your senses, meeting with their oppressor and they wrote it down. They wrote it down. I get sick of the narratives that we are not our answer. Yes we are. Yes I am. I'm here because of them. I think they called me. I think they call me here. I think the fussing that I make, the anger that I possess this need to resist every damn thing. I think they make me do thatTamice (23:35):Indeed, I think. But I didn't get my voice until they took the MLE off, had an honor with my ancestors and they came and they told me it's time. Take that mle off, MLE off. Shoot. Why Jesus ain't tell me to take no muzzle off. I'm going to tell you that now.Danielle (23:52):That's why I mean many indigenous people said, Jesus didn't come back for me because if that guy's bringing me Jesus, then now Jesus didn't come back for me.Starlette (24:07):Come on.Make it plain. Danielle, go ahead. Go ahead. Walk heavy today. Yeah, I meanDanielle (24:17):I like this conversation. Why Jesus, why Jesus didn't come back for us, the three of us. He didn't come back for us. It didn't come back from kids. He didn't come back for my husband. Nope. And so then therefore that we're not going to find a freedom through that. No, that's no desire to be in that.Tamice (24:33):None. And that's what I mean and making it very, very plain to people like, listen, I actually don't want to be in heaven with your Jesus heaven. With your Jesus would be hell. I actually have one,Starlette (24:47):The one that they had for us, they had an N word heaven for us where they would continue to be served and they wrote it down. It's bad for people who are blio foes who like to read those testimonies. It is bad for people who like to read white body supremacy For Phil. Yeah, they had one for us. They had separate creation narratives known as polygenetic, but they also had separate alon whereby they thought that there was a white heaven and an inward heaven.I didn't even know that. Starla, I didn't even know that because they said they want to make sure their favorite slave was there to serve them. Oh yes, the delusion. People tell me that they're white. I really do push back for a reason. What do you mean by that? I disagree with all of it. What part of it do you find agreeable? The relationship of ruling that you maintain over me? The privilege. White power. Which part of it? Which part of it is good for you and for me? How does it help us maintain relationship as Christians?Danielle (25:47):I think that's the reality and the dissonance we live in. Right?Starlette (25:51):That's it. But I think there needs to be a separation.Are you a white supremacist or not?Tamice (26:03):That's what I'm saying. That's why I keep saying, listen, at this point, you can't be good and racist. Let me just say that. Oh no, you got to pickStarlette (26:12):And I need to hear itTamice (26:13):Both. Yeah. I need you to public confession of it.Starlette (26:19):Someone sent me a dm. I just want to thank you for your work and I completely agree. I quickly turned back around. I said, say it publicly. Get out of my dms. Say it publicly. Put it on your page. Don't congratulate me. Within two minutes or so. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. You are right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Did he post anything? No. Say it publicly. Denounce them. Come out from among them.Very, very plain. As a white supremacist or na, as a kid, as children. HowDanielle (26:56):Hard is it? I think that's what made this moment so real and it's a kind of a reality. Fresher actually for everybody to be honest, because it's a reality. All certain things have been said. All manner of things have been said by people. This is just one example of many people that have said these things. Not the only person that's lived and died and said these things. And then when you say, Hey, this was said, someone's like, they didn't say that. You're like, no, some people put all their content on the internet receipts. They did it themselves. That's not true. And I went to a prayer vigil. I didn't go. I sat outside a prayer vigil this weekend and I listened in and they were praying for the resurrection like Jesus of certain people that have passed on. I kid you, I sat there in the car with a friend of mine and then my youngest daughter had come with me just to hang out. She's like, what are they praying for? I was like, they're like, they were praying for a certain person to be resurrected from the dead just like Jesus. And I was so confused. I'm so confused how we got that far, honestly. But I told my kid, I said, this is a moment of reality for you. This is a moment to know. People think like this.Starlette (28:13):Also, white bodyDanielle (28:14):Supremacy is heresy. Yes. It's not even related to the Bible. Not at all.Why I steal away. This is why even the mistranslated Bible, even the Bible that you could take,Starlette (28:33):ThisThe version Danielle started. If you wouldn't have said that, I wouldn't have said that. This is exactly why I steal away. This is exactly why I leave. Because you can't argue with people like that. Now we're resurrected. IAll I need, it's like away. This is exactly why, because I can't hear what Howard Thurman calls the sound of the genuine in that. It's just not going to happen.Danielle (29:01):Can you imagine what would've happened if we would've prayed for George Floyd to be resurrected? Listen, what would've happenedStarlette (29:08):That he called the scumbag.Danielle (29:10):Yeah, but what would've happened if we would've played for their resurrection? Adam, Adam Polito. ThatStarlette (29:19):Was foundTamice (29:19):Psychosis.Starlette (29:21):Yeah. What would've happened? See, don't push me now. I feel like I need to pack. As soon as I said fill away, it's like people keep saying, what are you going to do if gets worse? I'm going to leave my, I'll sell all this crapAbout this stuff. This booby trap of capitalism. I'll it all don't about none of it. What matters most to me is my sense of ness. And when you get to talking, I almost said talking out the side of your neck. Jesus God, today, lemme God Jesus of your neck. You just need to know that's a cultural thing. That's going to have to be reevaluated. God. It just came right on out. Oh Lord. When you start saying things that go against my sense of ness that you think that I have to defend my personhood, that you want to tell me that I don't exist as a person. I don't exist as a human. Back to your reality testament. It's time for me to leave. I'm not staying here and fighting a race war or a civil war. You mamas are just violent. It's what you've always been.Tamice (30:28):Why would I stand in the middle? Why would I stand in the middle of what I know is a confrontation with yourself?Starlette (30:36):Oh, okay. Alright. I'm going to justTamice (30:38):You all. What happened last week is it, it is a confrontation with a really disturbed self and they're trying to flip it. Oh yes. They're trying to make it. Yes. But this is like, I'm trying to tell people out here, this is beyond you, Jack, that was a prophetic witness against you because now you see that what you're fighting is the mirror. Keep me out of it. I won't fight your wars. Keep me out of it. Look, James Baldwin said, y'all have to decide and figure out why you needed a nigger in the first place.I'm not a nigger. I'm a man. But you, the white people need to figure out why you created the nigger in the first place. Fuck, this is not my problem. This is a y'all and I don't have anything invested in this. All I'm trying to do is raise my kids, man. Come on. Get out of here with that. I'm sorry.Danielle (31:48):No, you keep going and then go back to starlet. Why do you think then they made her Terry? They had to make sure she doesn't buy into that. That's my opinion.Tamice (32:00):It's funny too because I see, I mean, I wasn't Pentecostal. I feel like who's coming to mind as soon as you said that de y'all know I'm hip hop. Right? So KRS one.Starlette (32:12):Yes. Consciousness.Tamice (32:14):The mind. Oh yes, the mind, the imagination. He was, I mean from day one, trying to embed that in the youth. Like, Hey, the battlefield is the mind. Are you going to internalize this bullshit?Are you going to let them name you?Starlette (32:34):This is the word.Tamice (32:34):Are you going to let them tell you what is real for the people of God? That's That's what I'm saying, man. Hip hop, hip hop's, refusal has been refusal from day one. That's why I trust it.Because in seen it, it came from the bottom of this place. It's from the bottom of your shoe. It tells the truth about all of this. So when I listen to hip hop, I know I'm getting the truth.Starlette (32:57):Yeah. EnemyObjection. What did public enemy say? Can't trust it. Can't trust it. No, no, no, no. You got to play it back. We got to run all that back.Danielle (33:11):I just think how it's so weaponized, the dirt, the bottom of the shoe, all of that stuff. But that's where we actually, that's what got it. Our bodies hitting the road, hitting the pavement, hitting the grass, hitting the dirt. That's how we know we're in reality because we've been forced to in many ways and have a mindset that we are familiar with despite socioeconomic changes. We're familiar with that bottom place.Tamice (33:38):Yeah. I mean, bottom place is where God is at. That's what y'all don't understand. God comes from black, dark dirt, like God is coming from darkness and hiddenness and mystery. You don't love darkness. You don't love GodStarlette (33:56):Talk. Now this bottom place is not to be confused with the sunken place that some of y'all are in. I just want to be clear. I just want to be clear and I'm not coming to get you. Fall was the wrong day. TodayI think it's good though because there's so much intimidation in other communities at times. I'm not saying there's not through the lynchings, ongoing lynchings and violence too and the threats against colleges. But it's good for us to be reminded of our different cultural perspectives and hear people talk with power. Why do you think Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez wrote letters to each other? They knew something about that and knew something about it. They knew something about it. They knew something about why it's important to maintain the bonds. Why we're different, why we're similar. They knew something about it. So I see it as a benefit and a growth in our reality. That is actually what threatens that, that relationship, that bond, that connection, that speaking life into one another. That's what threatens that kingdom that you're talking about. Yeah.You just can't fake an encounter either.When I was tear, no matter what I've decolonized and divested from and decentered, I cannot deny that experience. I know that God was present. I know that God touched me. So when mother even made sister, even made, my grandmother would call me when I was in college, first person to go to college. In our family, she would say before she asked about classes or anything else, and she really didn't know what to ask. She only had a sixth grade education. But her first question was always you yet holding on?Right. She holding on. And I said, yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Then she would, because it didn't matter if you couldn't keep the faith. There really wasn't nothing else for her to talk to you about. She was going to get ready to evangelize and get you back because you backslid. But that was her first thing. But what I've learned since then is that I can let go.The amazing thing is that the spirit is guiding me. I didn't let go all together. You got it. You got it. If it's real, if you're real, prove it. Demonstrate it. I'm getting chills now talk to me without me saying anything, touch me. I shouldn't have to do anything. Eugene Peterson says that prayer is answering speech. In fact, the only reason why I'm praying is because you said something to me first. It's not really on me to do anything. Even with the tear. I was already touched. I was already called. The reason why I was on my knees and pleading is because I'd already been compelled. Something had had already touched me. FirstThey called Holy Spirit. The hound of heaven. Damn right was already on my heels. I was already filled before I could even refuse. I was like, I don't want this. I'm going to always be star Jonah, get your people. I prefer fish guts. Throw me overboard. I don't like these people. Certified prophet because I don't want to do it. I never want to do it. I'm not interested at all. I have no too much history. I've had to deal with too much white body supremacy and prejudice and racism to want anything to do with the church. I see it for what? It's I'll never join one. By the way, are we recording? Is it on? I'm never joining a church ever. Until you all desegregate.You desegregate. Then we can talk about your ministry of reconciliation. Until then, you don't have one. Don't talk to me about a community day or a pulpit swap. I don't want to hear it. All Your praise. What did he say? A clinging, stumble, put away from me. Your conferences, all your multiracial. I don't want to hear none of it. Desegregate that part desegregate you, hypocrites, woe unto all of you white supremacists. If nobody ever told you that's not God. It's not of God. So I don't, for me, my reality is so above me, I know that Paul, because when I don't want to say anything, somebody is in my ear. Somebody was talking to me this morning. Somebody was writing a note in my ear. I had to get up. I said, please. I'm like, now I'm not even awake all the way. Stop talking to me. You can't fake that as much as I push against the Holy Spirit. You can't fake that. I don't want to do it. I don't want to say it. I'm of saying it. And yet I get up in the morning and it's like, say this, that post that. Write that. Somebody else is doing that. That's not me.As the mothers say, my flesh is weak. My flesh is not willing at all. I want to, all of y'all can go on. I'll pack this up and move somewhere else. Let them fight it to the death. I'm not going to, this is just my flesh speaking. Forgive me. Okay. This Raceless gospel is a calling friends. It's a calling. It's a calling, which means you coming into it. I'm an itinerant prophet. I'm heavy into the Hebrew scriptures. I come up with every excuse. My throat hurts. I got a speech impediment. The people don't like me. I'm not educated. It don't work. You need to know when people come to you and say, y'all need to get together, God speaking to you, the Pendo is coming. That's not like an invitation. That's kind of like a threat whether you want it or not. You're getting together.Everybody up. There's a meal ready, there's a banquet that is set and the food is getting cold and you are the reason why the drinks are watered down. That's go. You don't hear me calling you. ComeWhat I keep hearing. You have to know that God is speaking to people and saying that there's an invitation coming and you better get right. You better get washed up. Tam me said, you better let somebody pour that water over your hands. You better get washed up and get ready for dinner. I'm calling you. Come on in this house. Come on in this house. And this house is for everybody. Martin Luther King called it the world house. Everybody's coming in and you ain't got to like it doesn't matter. Get somewhere and sit down. That's that old church mother coming out of me and lemme just confess. I didn't even want to be on here this morning. I told God I didn't feel like talking. I told the Lord and you see what happened.Promise you. I'm a child. I'm full of disobedience.I was not in the mood. I said, I don't want to talk to nobody. I'm an introvert. I don't want to deal with none of this. Get somebody else to do it and look at it.Tamice (40:39):Yeah. It's funny because I woke up this morning, I was like, I'm not, I forgot. And then after all of the news today, I was like, I just don't have it in you, but this is, wait a minute. And it was three minutes past the time. Come on. And I was like, oh, well shoot. The house is empty. Nobody's here right now. I was like, well, lemme just log on. So this is definitely, it feels like definitely our calling do feel. I feel that way. I don't have time to bullshitSo I can't get out of it. I can't go to bed. I might as well say something. It won't let me go. I cannot do deceit. I can't do it. I can't sit idly by while people lie on God. I can't do that. I can't do it. It won't let up. And I'm trying to get in my body, get in this grass and get a little space. But I'm telling you, it won't let me go. And I feel it's important, Dee, you can't stop doing what you're doing. That's right. I mean is this thing of it is beyond me. It is living out of me. It's coming through me. And there has to be a reason for this. There's got to be a reason for this. And I don't know what it is because I know my eschatology is different, but I feel like, buddy, we got to manifest this kingdom. We have to manifest it until it pushes all that shit back. Come on. I'm telling you. Till it scurries it away or renders it and null and void, I'm talking. I mean, I want the type of light and glory on my being. That wicked logic disintegrate, wicked people drop dead. I mean that just in the Bible. In the Bible where Hert falls, headlong and worms eat em. Y'all celebrate that. Why can't I think about that? It's in your scriptures or daykin and the thing breaks and the legs of this false God break. I want that. I'm here for that. I'm going after that.Danielle (43:14):You think that this is what the definition of Terry is? That we're all Terry serious. I'm rocking the whole time. I'm serious. Right. That's what I told my kids. I said, in one sense, this is a one person of many that thinks this way. So we can't devote all our conversation in our house to this man. And I said in the other sense, because Starlet was asking me before he got here, how you doing? I said, we got up and I took calls from this person and that person and I told my kids, we're still advocating and doing what we can for the neighbors that need papers. And so we're going to continue doing that. That is the right thing to do. No matter what anybody else is doing in the world, we can do this.Tamice (43:56):Yeah, that's a good call. I mean, I'm headed to, I ain't going to say where I'm going no more, but I'm headed somewhere and going to be with people who are doing some innovation, right. Thinking how do we build a different world? How do our skillsets and passions coalesce and become something other than this? So I'm excited about that. And it's like that fire, it doesn't just drive me to want to rebuke. It does drive me to want to rebuild and rethink how we do everything. And I'm willing, I mean, I know that I don't know about y'all, but I feel like this, I'm getting out of dodge, but also I'm seeking the piece of the city. I feel both. I feel like I'm not holding hands with ridiculousness and I'm not moving in foolishness. But also I'm finna seek the piece of the city. My G I'm not running from delusion. Why would I? I'm in the truth. So I don't know how that maps onto a practical life, but we're finna figure it out. Out in it. I mean, the response of leadership to what has happened is a very clear sign where we are in terms of fascism. That's a very clear sign.What else y'all are looking for To tell you what it is.Danielle (45:36):But also we're the leaders. We are, we're the leaders. They're a leader of something, but they're not the leader of us. We're the leaders. We're the leaders. So no matter what they say, no matter what hate they spew, I really love Cesar Chavez. He's like, I still go out and feed the farm worker and I don't make them get on the boycott line because if they're pushed under the dirt, then they can't see hope. So people that have more economic power, a little more privilege than the other guy, we're the leaders. We're the ones that keep showing up in love. And love is a dangerous thing for these folks. They can't understand it. They can't grasp it. It is violent for them to feel love. Bodies actually reject it. And the more we show up, you're innovating. You're speaking Starla, you're preaching. We're the leaders. They're leaders of something. They're not leaders of us. We're leaders of freedom.Tamice (46:31):Come on now. D, we're leaders of give us thisStarlette (46:34):Bomb. We're leaders of compassion. You coming in here with the Holy Ghosts, acting like one of them church mothers. We were in the room together. She put our hand on us. YouDanielle (46:43):We're the ones that can remember Trey. We're the ones that can call for justice. We don't need them to do it. They've never done it. Right. Anyway. They have never showed up for a Mexican kid. They've never showed up for a black kid. They've never done it. Right. Anyway, we're the ones that can do it now. We have access to technology. We have access to our neighbors. We can bring a meal to a friend. We can give dollars to someone that needs gas. We're the the one doing it. We're the one that doing itTamice (47:11):Fill usDanielle (47:12):Up. They cannot take away our love.Starlette (47:15):Receive the benediction.Danielle: Yeah. They can't take it away. I'm telling you, if I saw someone shooting someone I hate, I would try to save that person. I don't own guns. I don't believe in guns, period. My family, that's my personal family's belief.And I would do that. I've thought about it many times. I thought would I do it? And I think I would because I actually believe that. I believe that people should not be shot dead. I believe that for the white kid. I believe that for the Mexican kid. I believe that for the black kid, we're the people that can show up. They're not going to come out here. They're inviting us to different kind of war. We're not in that war. That's right. We have love on our side and you cannot defeat love, kill love. You can'tTamice (48:04):Kill love and you can't kill life. That's the only reason somebody would ask you to be nonviolent. That's the only way somebody would've the audacity to ask that of you. Especially if you're oppressed. If the true is truth is that you can't kill love or life, damn man. It's hard out here for a pimp.Starlette (48:38):Really. Really? Yeah. Because what I really want to say isTamice (49:27):I can't. Your testimony a lie. No. Your testimony. That would be a lie. And like I said, truth telling is important. But there are days where I could be that I could go there, but I witnessed what happened that day. I watched the video. It's just not normal to watch that happen to anybody. And I don't care who you are. And the fact that we're there is just objectively just wow. And the fact that all of the spin and do y'all not realize what just happened? Just as a actual event. Right. What? You know, I'm saying how has this turned into diatribes? Right? We need reform. I, whichDanielle (50:29):Which, okay, so I have to cut us off. I have a client coming, but I want to hear from you, given all the nuance and complexity, how are you going to take care of your body this week or even just today? It doesn't have to be genius. Just one or two things you're going to do. Oh, I'm going toTamice (50:51):Take a nap. Yeah, you taking a nap? Y'all be so proud of me. I literally just said no to five things. I was like, I'm not coming to this. I'm not doing that. I won't be at this. I'm grieving. I'm go sit in the grass. Yeah, that's what I'm doing today. And I have stuff coming up. I'm like, Nope, I'm not available.Starlette (51:14):What about you Danielle? What are you going to do?Danielle (51:16):I'm going to eat scrambled eggs with no salt. I love that. I've grown my liver back so I have to have no salt. But I do love scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs. That's the truth. Four. Four scrambled eggs.Starlette (51:31):And we thank you for your truth. BIO:The Reverend Dr. Starlette Thomas is a poet, practical theologian, and itinerant prophet for a coming undivided “kin-dom.” She is the director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, named for her work and witness and an associate editor at Good Faith Media. Starlette regularly writes on the sociopolitical construct of race and its longstanding membership in the North American church. Her writings have been featured in Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, Free Black Thought, Word & Way, Plough, Baptist News Global and Nurturing Faith Journal among others. She is a frequent guest on podcasts and has her own. The Raceless Gospel podcast takes her listeners to a virtual church service where she and her guests tackle that taboo trinity— race, religion, and politics. Starlette is also an activist who bears witness against police brutality and most recently the cultural erasure of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. It was erected in memory of the 2020 protests that brought the world together through this shared declaration of somebodiness after the gruesome murder of George Perry Floyd, Jr. Her act of resistance caught the attention of the Associated Press. An image of her reclaiming the rubble went viral and in May, she was featured in a CNN article.Starlette has spoken before the World Council of Churches North America and the United Methodist Church's Council of Bishops on the color- coded caste system of race and its abolition. She has also authored and presented papers to the members of the Baptist World Alliance in Zurich, Switzerland and Nassau, Bahamas to this end. She has cast a vision for the future of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture's “Forward Conference: Religions Envisioning Change.” Her paper was titled “Press Forward: A Raceless Gospel for Ex- Colored People Who Have Lost Faith in White Supremacy.” She has lectured at The Queen's Foundation in Birmingham, U.K. on a baptismal pedagogy for antiracist theological education, leadership and ministries. Starlette's research interests have been supported by the Louisville Institute and the Lilly Foundation. Examining the work of the Reverend Dr. Clarence Jordan, whose farm turned “demonstration plot” in Americus, Georgia refused to agree to the social arrangements of segregation because of his Christian convictions, Starlette now takes this dirt to the church. Her thesis is titled, “Afraid of Koinonia: How life on this farm reveals the fear of Christian community.” A full circle moment, she was recently invited to write the introduction to Jordan's newest collection of writings, The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race and Religion.Starlette is a member of the Christian Community Development Association, the Peace & Justice Studies Association, and the Koinonia Advisory Council. A womanist in ministry, she has served as a pastor as well as a denominational leader. An unrepentant academician and bibliophile, Starlette holds degrees from Buffalo State College, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Wesley Theological Seminary. Last year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Sacred Theology for her work and witness as a public theologian from Wayland Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of "Take Me to the Water": The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church and a contributing author of the book Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth & a New Kind of Christianity. Dr. Tamice Spencer - HelmsGod is not a weapon.  Authenticity is not a phase.Meet  Tamice Spencer-Helms (they/she). Tamice is a nonprofit leader, scholar-practitioner, pastor, and theoactivist based in Richmond, Virginia. For decades, Tamice has been guided by a singular purpose: to confront and heal what they call “diseased imagination”—the spiritual and social dis-ease that stifles agency, creativity, and collective flourishing. As a pastor for spiritual fugitives,  Tamice grounds their work at the intersection of social transformation, soulful leadership, womanist and queer liberation theologies, and cultural critique.A recognized voice in theoactivism, Tamice's work bridges the intellectual and the embodied, infusing rigorous scholarship with lived experience and spiritual practice. They hold two master's degrees (theology and leadership) and a doctorate in Social Transformation. Their frameworks, such as R.E.S.T. Mixtape and Soulful Leadership, which are research and evidence-based interventions that invite others into courageous truth-telling, radical belonging, and the kind of liberating leadership our times demand.​Whether facilitating retreats, speaking from the stage, consulting for organizations, or curating digital sanctuaries, Tamice's presence is both refuge and revolution. Their commitment is to help individuals and communities heal, reimagine, and build spaces where every person is seen, known, and liberated—where diseased imagination gives way to new possibilities. Kitsap County & Washington State Crisis and Mental Health ResourcesIf you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call 911.This resource list provides crisis and mental health contacts for Kitsap County and across Washington State.Kitsap County / Local ResourcesResourceContact InfoWhat They OfferSalish Regional Crisis Line / Kitsap Mental Health 24/7 Crisis Call LinePhone: 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/24/7 emotional support for suicide or mental health crises; mobile crisis outreach; connection to services.KMHS Youth Mobile Crisis Outreach TeamEmergencies via Salish Crisis Line: 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://sync.salishbehavioralhealth.org/youth-mobile-crisis-outreach-team/Crisis outreach for minors and youth experiencing behavioral health emergencies.Kitsap Mental Health Services (KMHS)Main: 360‑373‑5031; Toll‑free: 888‑816‑0488; TDD: 360‑478‑2715Website: https://www.kitsapmentalhealth.org/crisis-24-7-services/Outpatient, inpatient, crisis triage, substance use treatment, stabilization, behavioral health services.Kitsap County Suicide Prevention / “Need Help Now”Call the Salish Regional Crisis Line at 1‑888‑910‑0416Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/Suicide-Prevention-Website.aspx24/7/365 emotional support; connects people to resources; suicide prevention assistance.Crisis Clinic of the PeninsulasPhone: 360‑479‑3033 or 1‑800‑843‑4793Website: https://www.bainbridgewa.gov/607/Mental-Health-ResourcesLocal crisis intervention services, referrals, and emotional support.NAMI Kitsap CountyWebsite: https://namikitsap.org/Peer support groups, education, and resources for individuals and families affected by mental illness.Statewide & National Crisis ResourcesResourceContact InfoWhat They Offer988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (WA‑988)Call or text 988; Website: https://wa988.org/Free, 24/7 support for suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, relationship problems, and substance concerns.Washington Recovery Help Line1‑866‑789‑1511Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesHelp for mental health, substance use, and problem gambling; 24/7 statewide support.WA Warm Line877‑500‑9276Website: https://www.crisisconnections.org/wa-warm-line/Peer-support line for emotional or mental health distress; support outside of crisis moments.Native & Strong Crisis LifelineDial 988 then press 4Website: https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/injury-and-violence-prevention/suicide-prevention/hotline-text-and-chat-resourcesCulturally relevant crisis counseling by Indigenous counselors.Additional Helpful Tools & Tips• Behavioral Health Services Access: Request assessments and access to outpatient, residential, or inpatient care through the Salish Behavioral Health Organization. Website: https://www.kitsap.gov/hs/Pages/SBHO-Get-Behaviroal-Health-Services.aspx• Deaf / Hard of Hearing: Use your preferred relay service (for example dial 711 then the appropriate number) to access crisis services.• Warning Signs & Risk Factors: If someone is talking about harming themselves, giving away possessions, expressing hopelessness, or showing extreme behavior changes, contact crisis resources immediately. Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelor's of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: What is the foundation for Marian consecration? Why wasn't Mary present at Jesus' tomb for the resurrection? Can Catholics perform secular weddings? Why is the church not calling out wokeness? Should we receive the Eucharist if we haven't been to confession? "Religions don't do the things they preach about." Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Many of my traditional Catholic friends are exploring Eastern Orthodoxy because they feel it has preserved liturgy and doctrine more faithfully than the post-Vatican II Church. How should we respond to these claims, especially when Orthodoxy seems to outwardly resemble pre-conciliar Catholicism more than modern Rome? Is it okay to listen to YouTube talks given by Eastern Orthodox priests? In the Confiteor, it talks about sinning in one's thoughts. Is it truly possible to sin simply in your thoughts? When does anger/raising voice at a family member become a mortal sin? Does it matter if they have dementia or another illness that affects mental processes? I've been invited to a Kingdom Hall service, as well as a meeting of the Freemasons (as a guest). Is it safe to say I should decline those invitations? Is there a greater efficiency in having an individual Mass for a person vs a family Mass for all the members of the family? If partaking in the body and blood of Christ is essential to eternal life according to scripture, why do faithful Christians struggle to understand the belief of feeling worthy of it? As an altar server, I can't touch the ciborium without gloves on. How can laymen be authorized to touch the Eucharist with their bare hands as parishioners or Eucharistic ministers? I've seen some exorcists claim that tattoos are a portal to demons (although I don't believe it is backed by the Church). I have a few tattoos and plan to get more (all related to my religion and heritage), so I'm just wondering your stance and the official teaching on if it's really a “portal”? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Family Worship brings the church service to you, on air Sundays at 9am and 6pm and now on demand, wherever you get your podcasts. Every week a special guest pastor will bring a message that will get you thinking and speak to your heart. Dr Maeve Louise Heaney VDMF is a consecrated member of the Verbum Dei Community and Director of the Xavier Centre for Theological Formation at Australian Catholic University. She completed a Licentiate and Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where she taught for two years, as well as at the Rome base of the Catholic University of Dallas. She was Bannan Fellow at Santa Clara University for the academic year 2011-2012, and a Fellow at Lonergan Institute at Boston College in 2019.A theologian, musician and composer, Maeve has worked in Spain, England, Ireland, Italy and Australia leading schools of evangelization, spiritual exercises and teaching theology. She is a sought-after speaker and author, writing and presenting on areas of theological aesthetics, music, fundamental theology, spirituality, preaching, and women’s leadership. She also lectures in Theology at ACU and works as a formator at Holy Spirit Provincial Seminary, Queensland.She has been Acting President and Asia-Pacific Representative of The International Network of Societies of Catholic Theology (INSeCT. Connecting Catholic Theology Worldwide). She is currently President of the Australian Catholic Theological Association (ACTA). Links You Should Click On Maeve Louise Heaney's Website96five Church Directory96five's WebsiteFollow us on Instagram & FacebookSupport the show: https://www.96five.com/donate/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show: Are the Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic Church the same? How does "Honor thy mother and father" change a child becomes an adult? What happens if you receive a blessing from God, but choose to reject it?  Can an Eastern rite priest say mass in other rites? Why weren't Eastern Rite liturgies changed after Vatican II? What is the Eastern church's stance on contraception vs. the West? Which type of funeral mass should we have for a non-practicing Catholic? What do Eastern Catholics think of the feud between the Novus Ordo and Traditional Latin Mass? Can you explain kneeling vs. standing during mass in the different rites? What is the Eastern Catholic view on the synodal church? Any advice on discerning between “waiting on the Lord” and trusting in His timing? ​Is 1 Cor 10:2 an example of a type of infant baptism? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

In this episode, Fr. Steven shares about his latest academic adventure — beginning work toward an STL (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) in the New Evangelization at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. What exactly is an STL? Why go back to school now? And what does the New Evangelization even mean in a world that often seems tired of religion?Fr. Steven unpacks the structure of the program, the classes he's diving into this semester — Theology of the New Evangelization, Carmelite Spirituality, and Vatican II — and what he hopes to carry from the classroom into the pulpit, the parish, and beyond.Whether you're a theology nerd or just wondering what "Carmelite spirituality" even is, this episode offers a great look at the intersection of faith, study, and mission.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Could you explain the difference in the concepts of original sin in the East versus West? As Western Catholics, are we able to venerate Eastern Saints or ask for their intercession? How does one experience a beatific vision? Do many, or few, go to heaven? Were my parents married in the proper way? Why are there so many "types" of Catholics, and do they get along? Are there any traditions in the Melkite church that have come about because of Latinization? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (PFIC) at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of The Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Are there any Rites that do not fulfill one's Sunday obligation? How can we help prepare children who are getting ready to do their first confession? Can you suggest ways that we can reach out to the young people in our parish? Can you explain how the Bible considers Jesus' resurrection to have occurred after 3 days?  What exactly is Heaven?  Does the wife of an Eastern priest have a special title? If we were to discover life on other planets, how might that affect our Catholic beliefs? After praying for healing, is it possible that a person may experience pain for a while as a result of the Lord's intervention? Does God ever change his mind? Are Eastern rite churches allowed to play or use patriotic music during The Divine Liturgy? If I drank from a water bottle before Mass that had some crumbs from my toddler in it, does that violate the Eucharistic fast? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: Is there a difference between telling the truth and being judgmental? What can one do if they stop feeling guilty after a habitual sin? Is it permissible for a professional athlete to work on Sundays? Are there different beliefs regarding transubstantiation in the Eastern Rite Catholic churches? How can you tell what God's will is for you? Can a non-Catholic attend confession? When attending mass, does one have to focus on the prayers of the priest? Can you pray a rosary while the mass is going on? Is it a sin to gamble, if I have a set amount of money set aside for the purpose of gambling.  And if it is a sin, is it mortal or venial? I have a friend who is straying away from the faith, what can I say to help him? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show: If lifting an excommunication makes one not in schism, wouldn't that mean the Eastern Orthodox are no longer in schism? If the SSPX are not schism, does that mean the EO aren't either? If one looks at somebody of the opposite sex and notices their physical appearance or fitness in a non-lustful way, would that be considered sinful? I had a Priest tell me that I was fulfilling my Sunday obligation when I was attending the Orthodox Church for a year, but not with the SSPX. Would you say the same Father? Is it immoral to buy certain stocks in companies that may be involved in war? What happens in a Protestant Baptism? What does the term "ecumenical" mean? Is it true that in the eastern churches, Eucharistic miracles are seen as a bad thing? How do we explain to someone that Mary is sinless and was assumed into heaven with her body? After I receive absolution at the end of making my confession, is there something specific that I should be saying?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show: When and why did the Melkites reunite with Rome? Why don't priests take off their biretta while preaching? What is the Church's opinion on embryo adoption? Is it morally acceptable to attend a friend's civil wedding ceremony? What are some advantages to being a married priest? Do Latin Rite Catholics who visit an Eastern rite parish have to attend mass on Holy days of obligation? What weight does Fr. give to the language of the mass? Which catechism does the Melkite church use to teach catechumens? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show:  Can you explain the difference between blessing yourself from left to right, versus right to left as some Orthodox do? How do you justify the Filioque to the Orthodoxy? Is there any heresy in the Byzantine/Eastern rite in contrast to the western Roman Catholic rite? Is it coincidence that the Great Schism and Protestant reformation both happened under a pope named Leo? ​​What is the Eastern rite view on toll house? Pope Honorius I: A valid objection to the papacy? Should a damaged scapular be burned or buried? ​​Who purchases the ring for a newly elected Pope, and why is it so expensive? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Melkite (Eastern Catholic) priest, husband, and father, at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. DESCRIPTION: In Today's Show:   Why don't more priests offer continuous Catechism classes? If the Blessed Mother was protected from sin, why not the rest of humanity? Is it allowable to listen to an Orthodox Divine Liturgy since they are not in union with the Holy Catholic Church? How binding are abstinence rules put forth by the parents of a household during Lent? In the Eastern Rite, are Thursdays dedicated to Saints Peter, Paul and St. Nicholas? Or all the apostles and St. Nicholas?  Is there any hope that the eastern Catholic Churches will grow in number? Did Christ descend into Hell? Can Eastern Catholics become pope? What is the Byzantine Catholic teaching on Thomism? What is the Eastern Rite's solution to getting rid of spite, resentment and anger? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

DescriptionIn the wake of the news this week of Pope Francis' death, I immediately wondered what we could do here at Better Preach to honor his legacy, teaching and example - particularly around Preaching. For a while I wanted to do a dive into his first major letter to the Church, the Joy of the Gospel, from 2013, and look closely at his lengthy section in that document on homiletics. And thanks to Fr. Craig Vasek, who joined me way back in the beginning on episode 2 of Better Preach, he agreed to join me again at the last minute here to look back at Pope Francis' longest magisterial teaching on Preaching. Father Craig Vasek currently serves as pastor of St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Ordained in 2010 as a priest of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, Fr. Vasek is a graduate of the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City, having obtained a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 2011. Father Vasek has worked extensively with the Missionaries of Charity of Saint Teresa of Calcutta in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. He has produced works on the topics of Scripture and the Spiritual Life, and served as Specialist for the National Eucharist Revival with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.Check out Fr. Vasek's homilies here on: Podbean: https://stbernards.podbean.comSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6mwAvHPBm7c0pjGYUZxWEdLinksFor more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreachBetter Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here's a link to the channel.Check out Ryan's FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or FacebookJoin the Better Preach email list.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show Why is the Qurbono considered an offering in the Maronite Rite? How can we offer what we don't possess?  Is Palamism or the distinction between the essence and energy of God considered a heresy? Why is the sacrifice of the mass offered in the past tense? How can a priest like Fr. Copenhagen be married with children? Is saying I've read the terms and conditions without reading them be considered lying? Why does the devil hate Latin if it was a language created by pagans? How does a married priest balance priesthood and family life? Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

3/6/25 - Never before in the life of our nation have more drugs – legal and illegal – been consumed than now, and in such an acute time as this, it is difficult to evaluate which mood-altering drugs carry moral legitimacy. In these pages, author John-Mark Miravalle explores, through a Catholic lens, the phenomenon of chemical mood alteration and reflects on our feelings of pleasure and suffering and how they relate to the rest of our humanity. John-Mark L. Miravalle is professor of Systematic and Moral theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland. He received his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He is the author of three books, including Why God? Why Jesus? Why the Catholic Church? He has debated noted atheists on topics such as God's existence, same-sex marriage, and theistic morality. He and his wife Jessica have five children. You can find Dr. Miravalle's book here: https://sophiainstitute.com/product/how-to-feel-good-and-how-not-to/  

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. In Today's Show   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. But, this is a big loss for those who value human life and consider themselves pro-life. The main problem is human embryos are destroyed in the process. Our Father Christopher Trummer, S.T.L, breaks down why IVF is immoral for several reasons. Father Trummer is an associate delegate for Health Care Professionals, associate chaplain of the Springfield Chapter of the Catholic Physicians Guild/Catholic Medical Association, and has a license in Sacred Theology in Moral Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy.

Mother Assumpta and Sister Joseph Andrew, two of the four foundresses of the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan, join the podcast to talk about the beauty of Catholic education and what makes their Sisters so apt for teaching in and transforming Catholic schools not only in theology classrooms but in every discipline. The Sisters explain what makes Catholic education so essential today and why religious sisters as spiritual mothers have a unique charism for leading young people to Jesus Christ, the ultimate goal and purpose of Catholic schools. Mother Mary Assumpta Long, OP, is a Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, and the former (and first) prioress general of the order, ensuring the sisters' spiritual, physical, and educational needs were met. She was a driving force behind the founding of the order in 1997 and led the community for nearly 25 years. She has a STL in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. She has also taught at the elementary, secondary, and junior college levels.  Sr. Joseph Andrew is one of the four founders of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan and serves as Vocations Director of the community. Sister Joseph Mary lectures on topics related to religious life and theology, speaking at youth conferences, parishes, and on Catholic radio and social media to high school and university students, religious women, priests, and seminarians alike.

Fr. Daniel J. Mahan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, is the first director of the USCCB's Institute on the Catechism.  He holds a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm. He joins today to discuss his book A Journey through the Catechism: Unveiling the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness of the Catholic Faith Published by Ave Maria Press. There are corresponding videos and curriculum aids available.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show I am looking for work and they are asking me to work on Sabbath day. I know Sabbath Day is Sunday, but can I move it to another day? Or how do I keep the Sabbath Day holy even if I have to work? Historically, it was permitted for infants to receive communion in some Eastern churches. Is that still the case? Why does that differ from the Roman churches? What's the difference between veneration and worship? What verses can you use to explain this? How would I spot a worshiper from the venerator? Would it be considered unequally yoked if a Christian would be married to a Catholic?  Is the marriage only valid if it takes place in the Catholic church? What is Father's opinion regarding imprecatory prayers? I've heard that according to the Catholic Church, people of all beliefs can go to heaven if they live in accordance with God's will, and that the Church teaches that salvation is for everyone and not just for Catholics. If this is the case, why do Catholics have to go to confession while non-Catholics don't, if both can end up in the same place? Also don't Catholics say an Act of Contrition before Communion? Wouldn't that be effective enough? I'm trying to get baptized as a teenager. Is it possible to do it at home? I recently bought a Christian standard Bible-Holman edition not realizing it was not a Catholic Bible. I am a practicing Catholic and I would like to start reading the Bible more. This Bible is easy to read and I don't notice any differences in the words when I compare it to the Catholic Bible that I have. Is it wrong for me to read this Bible? I know about the missing books, but besides that, is it okay to read?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

The St. Paul Center's daily scripture reflections from the Mass for Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time by Dr. Scott Hahn. Ordinary Weekday/ Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome First Reading: Jeremiah 28: 1-17 Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 119: 29, 43, 79, 80, 95, 102 Alleluia: Matthew 4: 4b Gospel: Matthew 14: 13-21   Learn more about the Mass at www.stpaulcenter.com After over 20 years of preparation, the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament is finally ready. Drawing from the best of modern biblical scholarship, Church teaching, and the Catholic theological tradition, this study Bible is uniquely designed to help you read Scripture from the heart of the Church. Go to stpaulcenter.com/bible to pre-order your copy today!

The St. Paul Center's daily scripture reflections from the Mass for Monday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time by Dr. Scott Hahn. Ordinary Weekday/ Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome First Reading: Jeremiah 28: 1-17 Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 119: 29, 43, 79, 80, 95, 102 Alleluia: Matthew 4: 4b Gospel: Matthew 14: 13-21   Learn more about the Mass at www.stpaulcenter.com After over 20 years of preparation, the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament is finally ready. Drawing from the best of modern biblical scholarship, Church teaching, and the Catholic theological tradition, this study Bible is uniquely designed to help you read Scripture from the heart of the Church. Go to stpaulcenter.com/bible to pre-order your copy today!

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show Is it permissible to take a portion of a person's ashes to be buried and the remainder to be scattered.? My Catholic chiropractor says she is pro-choice, should I stop going there? My fiancée and I are living together but not committing any sexual acts. Is this wrong even though we have separate rooms? How do we process celebrities who wear Christian crosses in public, yet fail to live up to what the cross represents? In general, how would you recommend that one handles habitual lying in a marriage? What is the difference between the authority of a father vs a mother? Does God send evil, permit it, or both?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

In this episode of The Open Door (June 26),  panelists Jim Hanink, Christopher Zehnder, and Valerie Niemeyer discuss the role of spiritual direction. Just what is it? What is the ministry of the spiritual director? Our special and welcome guest is Msgr. Patrick Gaalaas. He is a priest of the Diocese of Tulsa and Eastern Oklahoma. Msgr. Gaalaas retired from parish work in 2022 at the age of 75. But “retirement” has led to “redirection.” He has worked as a spiritual director at Conception Seminary College in Missouri for the past two years. (Full disclosure: Monsignor has known Jim Hanink from the time they were fellow college seminarians at Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas.) Msgr. Gaalaas spent his final four years in the seminary at the American College at the University of Louvain in Belgium. There he earned a bachelor's degree in Sacred Theology and a master's degree in Moral and Religious Sciences. Among the questions we'll be asking are the following. You moved from parish work to a Benedictine Abbey. Is there a distinctive Benedictine spirituality?Spiritual direction pairs a spiritual director with a person interested in direction. But how does the average Catholic, if there is such a creature, know whether to seek spiritual direction?What's the difference between spiritual direction and psychological counselling?How does one go about finding a spiritual director? What might one expect if one Google searched “spiritual direction near me”?How does one become a spiritual director? Who can become a spiritual director?Is a personal calling from God requisite for being a spiritual director?Do spiritual directors ordinarily have diocesan recognition?What sort of direction do spiritual directors themselves have?Might we say that the Holy Spirit is at the center of spiritual direction?What are some signs that spiritual direction is going well? Or is not going well?

6/25/24 - John-Mark Miravalle is a Catholic husband and father, as well as a published author of three books and a professor of Systematic and Moral theology at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland. He received his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Regina Apostolorum in Rome. He joins us today to share some of his background and how he ended up teaching in a Catholic seminary as a layman.

In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by Brandon Eaves and Chris Kellam, two former Evangelical seminarians, to talk about how, as Evangelicals studying Scripture, they discovered the Biblical basis for the papacy and the Catholic view of justification. Brandon and Chris, two good friends with a great dynamic, explain how many of their misconceptions about Catholicism were dismantled as they looked into Scripture, the witness of the Early Church, and in the actual practice of the Catholic faith. How the papacy makes sense from Scripture and in our experience of Early Christianity. And how the understanding of justification by the Protestant Reformers isn't rooted in history – and how Protestants and Catholics are often saying the same things using different words when they talk about justification, salvation, and sanctification.Chris and Brandon have both been on the show to share their conversion stories. You can find these on our YouTube channel or look for episodes 248 and 242.For reading material, Chris and Brandon suggested:Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification by Alister McGrathCalled to Communion: Understanding the Church Today by Pope Benedict XVIGeneral Principles of Sacramental Theology by Dr. Roger NuttSalvation: What Every Catholic Should Know by Dr. Michael BarberPaul: A New Covenant Jew by Dr. Brant Pitre, et. al.Science of Sacred Theology by Emmanuel DoronzoYou can listen Brandon's new podcast Doxa everywhere podcasts are found.For more from Brandon follow him on Twitter. For more, visit The Cordial Catholic. Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests! To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our YouTube channel.Please consider financially supporting this show! For more information visit the Patreon page.  All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me.If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page.Thank you to those already supporting the show!This show is brought to you in a special way by our Patron Co-Producers. Thanks to Eli and Tom, Kelvin and Susan, Stephen, Victor and Susanne, Phil, Noah, Nicole, Michelle, Jordan, Jon, James, Gina, and Eyram.Support the Show.Find and follow The Cordial Catholic on social media:Instagram: @cordialcatholicTwitter: @cordialcatholicYouTube: /thecordialcatholicFacebook: The Cordial CatholicTikTok: @cordialcatholic

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show How does seminary work for a Melkite Catholic priest? Can you tell us a bit about your experience? Hi Father, I've been thinking about the part of the wedding vows “Till Death do us Part” and I was wondering is there really a Traditional Catholic background to these words?  Is Marriage eternal? What do you think Christ meant when He said, "there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of Heaven"? Would changing the Nicene Creed to omit the Filioque be an indication of a doctrinal change since the creed has been upheld through councils and a summary of the important articles of faith?  Do some of the Eastern Churches have more than 73 books of the Bible/Canons of Scripture? What are some of the most well-known or largest Eastern Rite Catholic churches and how do they differ from one another? Are Roman Catholics allowed to take the Eucharist in a Byzantine church? And vice versa. Are Eastern churches still in union with Rome? What is the relationship like with the Pope? Can a Eastern Rite Priest become pope? How did the Second Vatican Council change the Eastern Catholic Church?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

This lecture was given on February 2nd, 2024, at Ave Maria University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He is an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show What are the Melkites exactly? What geographical region does that cover? Which Divine Liturgy do the Melkites use? Why should one choose Catholicism over Orthodoxy? What are the differences in their theology and approach to faith? Do Eastern Rite churches celebrate the Novus Ordo? What is Father's opinion of the difference(s) between the Eastern Rite and the Roman Catholics on the Nicene Creed? How do doctrines of the Eastern Church compare to the doctrines of the Latin Church? Am I correct in my understanding that the Eastern Rite has a different view of Original Sin than the West? If so, can you tell me what the difference is? And also, how could something so instrumental in our Catholic faith lead to different views among rites without discrediting the church as a whole? Can women be on the altar in Eastern churches? Does the priest face Jesus or the people? Do the faithful receive in the hand or kneeling and on the tongue? What tips would you recommend for someone attending their first Divine Liturgy? What kind of relationship do you have with the Roman Catholic priests from your diocese? Do you work together in any capacity? Also, are you considered part of the Diocese of Rochester, or how does that all work? What is the purpose of the wall (Iconostasis I believe it's called) that separates the Altar and the people? There are three doors on that wall, and the servers and the priest enter and exit them in a particular way. What is the reason for that?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Bishop Scott Rassbach joins me in this episode to discuss the Apostolic Johannite Church, the Friary Ordo Sacrae Flammae, and the AJC's annual Conclave, and all manner of mystical strangeness.Bishop Rassach has a Bachelor's degree in English and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he prepared on a thesis on Philip K. Dick and his works. He also holds a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from St. Raphael's seminary, where he has delved into many topics in Modern Gnosticism.He is an avid student of magical and mystic orders, modern ways of understanding ancient ideas, and the intersection of the traditional and the current. Scott likes to say that he is not a professional occult practitioner, but rather an advanced amateur. But he seems pretty advanced to me!LinksApostolic Johannite ChurchOrdo Sacrae FlammaeThe AJC Annual Conclave (May 31st through June 2nd!)Mentioned in this episode:Visit Sword + ScytheSword + Scythe creates handmade materia magica, amulets, astrological talismans, and provides divinatory services under the auspices of Mars and Saturn. Visit at swordandscythe.comSword + ScytheThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

This lecture was given on December 16th, 2023, at the Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P. (Thomistic Institute) is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2016).

This lecture was given on December 16th, 2023, at the Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P. (Thomistic Institute) is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and Associate Professor in Systematic Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001, after having practiced constitutional law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. He has also taught at The Catholic University of America Law School and at Providence College. He is the author of The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 2016).

This lecture was given on December 2nd, 2023, at St. Albert's Priory. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. John Corbett, O.P. (St Gertrude's Priory) is a native of Columbus Ohio. He graduated from Providence College in 1973 and was ordained a Dominican priest in 1980. He received the Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Fribourg University in Switzerland. He has taught moral theology at Providence College, The Josephinum in Columbus and the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C. He is currently helping both in the Novitiate with spiritual direction and in the wider parish with Mass, preaching, and confessions.

This lecture was given on December 1st, 2023, at St. Albert's Priory. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. John Corbett, O.P. (St Gertrude's Priory) is a native of Columbus Ohio. He graduated from Providence College in 1973 and was ordained a Dominican priest in 1980. He received the Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Fribourg University in Switzerland. He has taught moral theology at Providence College, The Josephinum in Columbus and the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C. He is currently helping both in the Novitiate with spiritual direction and in the wider parish with Mass, preaching, and confessions.

Fr. Michael Copenhagen is a Catholic husband, father, and a priest at St. Nicholas the Wonderworker Melkite Catholic Church in Gates, New York. He holds a Bachelors of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In Today's Show What are some differences in the liturgical calendar in the Eastern Rite? What is the Eastern Rite and where/how did it originate? Should this be deemed as a separation or split from the Roman Rite, or is there a better way to describe it? I follow the Gregorian calendar! But what's the difference between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar? As I understand it, Eastern Rite Catholic priests are able to be married and even have children. Can you please explain that concept and why it is approached differently in Eastern Rite churches? How do Eastern Rite priests balance the roles of being a husband, father, and priest all at the same time? Are there any differences in potential roles for women in Eastern Rite churches in comparison to the Roman Rite? I thought I had heard somewhere that Eastern Rite churches are slightly more restrictive in this area. Does one need to be registered as a member of an Eastern Rite church in order to attend Mass there? In other words, if I am a parishioner of another parish, for example, could I just decide in a spur of the moment to attend an Eastern Rite mass on any given Sunday? Would that “get me in trouble” with God in any way? Did you ever, at any point, consider becoming a priest in the Roman rite? Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to the decision of becoming a Melkite Catholic priest? Is there any difference in how the sacraments are administered in a Melkite Catholic church versus, say, an average Roman Catholic parish?   Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

This lecture was given on November 4th, 2023, at the Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.

Are you familiar with the story of Abraham and Isaac? For many, this story is difficult to understand. How can a good and benevolent God ask a father to sacrifice his only son? In an illuminating discussion, Jeff Cavins and Dr. Margaret Turek delve into this famous Scripture narrative. Together, they unravel the layers of meaning within the story of Abraham and Isaac, shedding light on how it unveils the depths of God's love and wisdom. Dr. Margaret Turek is originally from the Midwest. She earned a B.A. at the University of San Francisco where she studied in the St. Ignatius Institute, an M.A. at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology, and a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Prior to her graduate studies, she received spiritual formation as a Carmelite for six years. Dr. Turek's scholarly interests include Trinitarian theology, Soteriology, and the re-integration of Dogmatic Theology and Spirituality. Before joining the faculty at STPSU in 2001, she was a tenured Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Dallas. She also teaches in the Deacon Formation Program for the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Diocese of Oakland.

This lecture was given on November 21st, 2023, at Universidad Panamericana Campus Mixcoac. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.

Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.

Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.

This lecture was given on October 27, 2023, at the Thomistic Institute in DC, on Capitol Hill For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.

This lecture was given on September 14, 2023, at the Thomistic Circles Conference at the Dominican House of Studies For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. currently serves as rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the “Angelicum”). Fr. White grew up in southeast Georgia in an inter-religious household. He completed his bachelor's in religious studies from Brown University (1993) and his Master's (1995) and Doctorate (2002) in Theology at Oxford University. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2003. He completed his licentiate in Sacred Theology (2007) at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. He professed final vows on May 17, 2007, and on May 23, 2008, was ordained a priest. His research and teaching have focused on topics related to Thomistic metaphysics, Christology and Roman Catholic-Reformed ecumenical dialogue. He was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2011. Fr. White taught at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C from 2008-2018. He was also the founder and Director of the Washington DC Thomistic Institute from 2009 until his departure for Rome in 2018. In 2015 White became a co-editor of Nova et Vetera Journal, an American Catholic Theological journal. In 2018 he was assigned to teach at the Angelicum and function as the Director of the Angelicum Thomistic Institute. In June of 2021, he was appointed rector of the Angelicum. Fr. White is also a musician and one of the founding members of the American folk and bluegrass band, The Hillbilly Thomists, for which he sings and plays the banjo, dulcimer and steel guitar. The U.S.-based group, made up of Dominican friars, has released two albums since 2017.

This lecture was given on May 24, 2023, at Trinity: Fundamental Ground of Reality and Mystery of Salvation For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events Speaker Bio: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.

This lecture was given on April 22, 2023, at the The Concept of “Ius” in Thomas Aquinas For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Dominic Legge, O.P., is the Director of the Thomistic Institute and an Assistant Professor in systematic theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.L. from the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of Fribourg. He entered the Order of Preachers in 2001 and was ordained a priest in 2007. He practiced law for several years as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a Dominican.